When did it start? With Poser 3 or so and really caught on in Poser 4. Some of the vendors have been around so long that it has become a habit. Then there still is a compatibility issue..... some vendors still seem to believe that we all user Poser 4 or 5. Vendors are still teaching other vendors how to do things and they pass on these ancient techniques.

If you become a vendor and start learning all the stuff you need to sell your products, you are basically taught outdated stuff, no one took the time to update. While Poser has moved on, most vendors and those teaching stuff haven't. You can find tons of teaching on how to things the old way, but a lot less on how to things the new way.

It's one of the reasons Poser is still in the dark ages, while DS has moved on. It's not that Poser isn't capable of these new techniques, it's the vendors in general refusing to utilize them. Look at Dawn.... we expected a new figure based on all the improvements Poser has to offer, what did we get? Old stuff!

When it comes to materials, most vendors still live in 90's or so. They use outdated texturing techniques. The material room has so much to offer, but most have no clue how to make their own materials.

Learning takes time and most vendors claim they're too busy already making money. In the real world one has to move on, follow courses, stay up to date, or you may loose your job. As long as the Poser community keeps on buying stuff based on old technology, vendors do not need to move on. Because of that, we will be stuck in Poser 4 time a long time.

You really can't blame MAT poses on backwards compatibility for everything.  There are some items on sale marked in the product requirements as needing Poser 9, Poser Pro 2010, Poser Pro 2012, Poser 10 and Poser Pro 2014, yet they include MAT Poses.  This has nothing to do with backwards compatibilty for these items. 

I don't use Dawn so I have not purchased anything for her but I am willing to bet some of the Dawn stuff on sale still has MAT Poses.

Well, I understand the vendor angle, trying to make their content appeal to as wide an audience as possible to maximize profit. I seem to recall the Gen4 figures only being compatible with P5 and up, so there's not a lot of reason to still be supporting Poser 4. Most people still using P4, and even P5, generally aren't big spenders, since there have been numerous sales and promos at prices so low that just about anyone with some pocket change could afford to upgrade if they wanted. There was a point when Poser 6 was being given away for free even, to anyone with a valid P5 serial. I think that was around the time of P7's release.

Right now P10 upgrades are on sale for about the same price as 2 dresses for vicky. But I'm sure there are still folks out there who will skip it cause it's still not cheap enough.

I agree with the point regarding vendors that refuse to update their pipelines out of laziness or a philosophy of not trying to fix what they see isn't broken. If it's working for them they don't see a reason to change. The problem with that is it eventually reaches a point where that refusal of new methods prevents everyone from progressing. The only way to really counteract it is for other content artists to make a serious effort in producing more content that utilizes the newest features and methods, to act as examples of what is possible and get their customers anxious for more of it. In the process it squeezes out the old stuff and makes room for the new. It does take risks, since building for the latest features narrows the customer base for what you produce innitially, but it also doesn't require an all or nothing approach either. Some items can require only the latest version of Poser while the others can still be backwards compatible.

I agree with backwards compatability to an extent but eventually it becomes a barrier to progress. Most software is only backwards compatible up to a certain number of versions, 2 or 3 at most. That helps to keep customers moving foreward and almost forces them to eventually upgrade or just get left behind. Of course that also requires having figures that people actually want to use. If most everyone is still content with using Gen4, because they aren't seeing anyone producing better figures that are designed for Poser's latest tech, then there's no real reason for them to want to upgrade the software. And what happens when the Gen4 figures no longer work in the latest version of Poser? As it is I've had issues getting various morphs to function correctly in PP2014. Hiro 4, for example - still cannot get him to load no matter what I've tried. Freak 4 loads just fine and I used the same install process for both of them. His head loads, and his forearms change, but the rest of him stays M4, including his eyes. Very frustrating. I don't have that problem in P7. 

~Shane

I think if the masses want to see a change then content creators will listen and conform to your wishes...that's part of customer service.

    From a vendor point of view, the progress of updating to newer formats and structures will always lag behind the upgrades and improvements in software... it's just a fact of life... it does take time to learn how to utilize the new features to incorporate them into a product properly (which is often somewhat more complicated than it is for an end user because we have to learn the new features first as a user and then as a content creator)... A good vendor should always be working on improvements to their skills and tools but making content is much more complicated than simply using it once its made... we have to learn the new features, and, the new tools needed for content creation... then learn how to properly implement these changes into the products we make so that said products will actually work the way they're supposed to.

    Yes it is nessessary for vendors to continue to improve their products and to incorporate new features, but to completely drop backwards compatability in favour of making sure that all the latest features are taken advantage of will also alienate a large protion of the marketplace... DAZ is an example of this. They chose to make products that could only function within DS (or in Poser using the DSON Importer) so that the main new features could be used, but in the process alienated a large number of long-term customers... particularly Poser users who now often have difficulty getting products to work within their chosen program. As we are all aware this also caused a massive community backlash when many users found that they could no longer use content they wanted to buy or had already bought. I can't and don't speak for DAZ but one would assume that this had a detrimental effect on sales... at least in the short term...

For larger sites like here at Rendo, and even at DAZ, the narrowing of the customer base and associated backlash is a bad hit but manage-able... for a small 3rd party vendor that can mean the difference between having business and being out of it entirely so they would need to be somewhat more cautious in the choices they make in implementing new features and supporting new upgrades... and more deliberate in their planning on doing so...

    One also has to consider the enormous pressure on vendors to not only offer new features but to continually keep pressing out new products and to meet continuous customer demands and requests. Again... not as big an issue if you are selling through a big site with a huge customer base but if you're a lone artist or a small site it can be a almost impossible task just to keep up... you have to work almost 24 hours a day to keep new products coming out and to meet new requests and demands, plus learning everything you need to know about any new features to be considered. It's a constant trade off between time, need, and productivity.

Of course, much of this would be less of an issue if companies would provide proper documenation of new features and make it easier for those of us on the user end to learn how to use and implement them... It's this lack of documentation that causes a great part of the lag in adopting new features into products... since much of the documentation has to come from the end user instead of the companies making the programs...

    The last thing a vendor has to consider is that by adopting the new features of one program he (or she) may be eliminating an entire customer base by rendering his/her products useless in another program entirely (DS versus Poser functionality being a perfect example). This potential loss has to be weighed against the potential gains. By continuing to use older file formats and structures, you can maintain a certain basic level of cross-compatibility between programs. In some other programs and markets this wouldn't be an issue, but the Poser/Daz community is a bit of a special case from a vendor perspective...

I'm not arguing against changes or different ways of doing things... i'm simply pointing out the many things a vendor has to take into consideration when making products. Just like there's no "Make Art" button in Poser... there's no "Make Content" button either (beleive me there are times I wish we had both)... It's a long and involved process to create content and lets face it, if everyone could do it we probably wouldn't have sites like Rendo to shop at...

cschell : a Link to ya store would be cool.

Allow another typical "wiz" ignornat question...

What is the difference between applying textures using mat poses and applying materials via the material folder? Both asppear to take one click from my keyboard.

What is the real issue here that is upsetting people and that I am missing?

It is not the loading that is the issue it is having to look in two places when you a looking for materials, that said it is not much of an issue a couple of minutes a month with Netherworks program sorts it.  I have more a problem with stripping out the readme or read me or read mes files and all other combinations of naming used.  I strip it out of the runtime and stick it in one big folder called content documentation.

     [1]  Logical placement - When I first got Poser, silly me, I looked in the material library for files to change textures.  One of the old hands told me "They're in the pose folder."

     That made no sense to me.  In retrospect, I now understand why, but again, the time of the MATpose has passed.

     [2]  Even distribution of libraries.  The pose folder is bulging;  the purpose-built material library sits nearly empty.  Also logical identification by file type - it's not a pose. 

     [3]  Accumulation of garbage in a cr2.  Sometimes using MATposes repeatedly can incrementally add no-longer-used data in the cr2.  As I understand it, this occurs with improperly made MATposes but not with properly made MATposes.

     Regarding ReadMe files, Poser provides a place for them - shared documents > Poser Pro 2014 Content > Runtime > Readme.  I often find ReadMe folders created by products & freebies stored beside the runtime folder.  More often, the folder is properly within runtime, but they just couldn't bring themselves to spell it correctly.  I see readmes, read me, et cetera.

Upgrading is not always a matter of money. Even if the price drops even more, it's not going to entice me to purchase. Poser Pro 2012 offers everything I need and I see more and more compatibility issues with older content.

Yes, there's quite some old stuff I still use and not everything works well in PP Pro 2012, while it works fine in PP Pro 2010. I've still got the older version installed for that reason and I'm not moving forward.... as well as no new stuff that will add much to what I can do with Poser already.

Quote - cschell : a Link to ya store would be cool.

Np... www.schells.ca... my site is called Schell's Armour Works... :)

Quote - > Quote - cschell : a Link to ya store would be cool.

Np... www.schells.ca... my site is called Schell's Armour Works... :)

Cool looking Armour & War Machines ,What app's do ya use in ya work flow ?

Quote - Regarding ReadMe files, Poser provides a place for them - shared documents > Poser Pro 2014 Content > Runtime > Readme.  I often find ReadMe folders created by products & freebies stored beside the runtime folder.  More often, the folder is properly within runtime, but they just couldn't bring themselves to spell it correctly.  I see readmes, read me, et cetera.

With regards to Readme files, I tend to use a standard file  runtime prepared by someone else and distributed as a freebie, so if anything is wrong with the spelling, I please ignorance.

I will point out thought that because I do use a Mac, and I know that MacOS stopping supporting the Classic OS years ago, even if you could download Mac Converter, it wouldn't run on a machine with anything over OS10.2 anyway.

Quote - Cool looking Armour & War Machines ,What app's do ya use in ya work flow ?

Thanks! :) I model and assign material zones in Hexagon , generate texture templates and uvmapping in UVMapper, paint the textures in PhotoImpressions 4 (with samples generated using Filter Forge as needed), then do figure rigging in Daz Studio with additional figure testing and adjustments in Poser. Final beta-testing is done in 2 versions of DS and Poser 7 on my end, and 3 or 4 versions of Poser through a beta-tester (plus ERC coding if needed) to ensure cross-compatability.

Do modern PC's run the old programs?I believe I lost use of Poser 2 and 3 when mac went to to OSX. And Poser 6 when MacOSX lost Rosetta for Pre-Intel programs.

 Now I am getting nostalgic! I need to get a OLD Mac so I can run my copies of Poser 2, 3 and 4 again! I remember the excitement of trans maps-no more plastic helmet hair!

I used Mac Converter all the time and a text editor to edit my Cr2's. Fun times!

I think OS 10 could still Macs still had Classic  OS9 bundled with them. and OS10.2 could run it in emulation mode.  But after OS10.2 Apple killed the Classic envioronment. No Intel Mac can run it at all. You'll probably need a Pre Intel Mac or a Power Mac to run it. And don't forget that Poser 4 was a memory hog.

On my end, this is done for DAZ support, plain and simple. Poser has a MAT room...... Daz does not. Daz has access to the POSE library....

Does this make sence?!

Quote -  

Do modern PC's run the old programs?I believe I lost use of Poser 2 and 3 when mac went to to OSX. And Poser 6 when MacOSX lost Rosetta for Pre-Intel programs.

 Now I am getting nostalgic! I need to get a OLD Mac so I can run my copies of Poser 2, 3 and 4 again! I remember the excitement of trans maps-no more plastic helmet hair!

I used Mac Converter all the time and a text editor to edit my Cr2's. Fun times!

on PC's it's a maybe with OSwindows 8.1
took a bit but got C4D 9 to work but none of the plugs work.

on windows vista never got Corel 8 or Poser4,5 to work.
never tryed on windows 8

Quote - On my end, this is done for DAZ support, plain and simple. Poser has a MAT room...... Daz does not. Daz has access to the POSE library....
Does this make sence?!

crystal clear

Quote - > Quote - Cool looking Armour & War Machines ,What app's do ya use in ya work flow ?

 

Thanks! :) I model and assign material zones in Hexagon , generate texture templates and uvmapping in UVMapper, paint the textures in PhotoImpressions 4 (with samples generated using Filter Forge as needed), then do figure rigging in Daz Studio with additional figure testing and adjustments in Poser. Final beta-testing is done in 2 versions of DS and Poser 7 on my end, and 3 or 4 versions of Poser through a beta-tester (plus ERC coding if needed) to ensure cross-compatability.

Thanks cschell

Quote - Thanks cschell

No probs... and thanks for the interest. :)

Quote - On my end, this is done for DAZ support, plain and simple. Poser has a MAT room...... Daz does not. Daz has access to the POSE library....

 

Does this make sence?!

Indeed it does... I have a similar reason for using and including mat poses as well... cross-compatibility with DS while still making things useable in Poser...

Quote - Allow another typical "wiz" ignornat question...

What is the difference between applying textures using mat poses and applying materials via the material folder? Both asppear to take one click from my keyboard.

What is the real issue here that is upsetting people and that I am missing?

Allow me, I wrote this last August, it is still accurate today.  This is why we can't have nice things in Poser........

Dear Poser Vendors,

I love you guys and gals, but I swear to god, some of you are your own worst enemies.  Making your products hard to use means I am less likely to buy your products in the future.  That sounded important, so let me repeat it:

Making your products hard to use means I am less likely to buy your products in the future.

That sounds a little nebulous; so let me get down to specifics.

Let's start with a little background material and what started this……

Every single product that I have purchased over the past week for Dawn (A product that ONLY WORKS IN POSER 9+ and DS 4.5+), was designed for Poser 4 compatibility.

When I question vendors about this, I get a song and dance over "backwards compatibility".  Apparently, many vendors out here in Poser/DS land are unsure of what level of "backwards compatibility" is necessary in 2013 – specifically in regards to material files (.pz2 vs .mc6).  I have been told repeatedly by vendors that this is necessary because not everyone has updated to the latest version of Poser –

"I have to make .pz2 for materials because the product is for Victoria 4."

This is incorrect.

The earliest version of Poser that will support DAZ's Gen 4 figures (V4.2, M4, K4, Aiko 4, The Girl 4, Freak 4, etc.) is Poser 6, according to DAZ. 

Understanding Content File Types - Supported Applications:

 helpdaz.zendesk.com/entries/22… 

 If you are a vendor, bookmark this page - this will show you what file types can be read by both DS & Poser - don't guess, know.

The earliest version of Poser that uses the .mc6 file format is Poser 6.  In addition,  DS4.5 and later can read .mc6 files - from the above webpage:

Studio 4.5 also supports the following Poser formats (.cr2, .pz2, .pp2, .fc2, .pp2, .mc6, .lt2).  It does not support .pz3 (Poser Scene) format or Python Scripts.

So, what does this mean?  It means that Poser 6 (not Poser 4) is the de facto, if not de jure, baseline for compatibility purposes between Poser & Daz Studio.

Knowing this, why in the name of all that is holy are vendors still making materials as g(##!&##@% .pz2 files instead of .mc6 files?  That was a hack for Poser 4.  There hasn't been a need to do it for almost a decade now.  

If you are only going to make 1 file, make it an .mc6 – let the luddites get a conversion utility.  In all honesty, it's like saying that even though we now have 64-bit computers and modern operating systems, we should still use 8.3 file naming conventions because there are still a few CPM and DOS holdouts running an IBM 8088 pc.  Let Poser 4 go.

Moving right along to file/folder names & conventions or Wherein my luv for vendors turns to "Flames, on the side of my face, breathing-breathing - heaving breaths. Heaving breaths... Heaving...."

Thereisnoneedtoramallofthefilenamestogether - Poser 4+ and Daz Studio can't run on DOS or OS9, so there isn't a need to do this anymore.  Not only is this unnecessary, it is hard to read.  Hard to read means I am less likely to buy your products in the future.

Nor_is_there_any_need_to_use_underscores - We have been able to use spaces for about a decade now, leave the DOS naming convention behind already. 

ALLCAPS - why are my folders and file names shouting at me?  When I am fixing things like this, I am saying a lot of things about the vendor – none of which can be repeated in a family-friendly forum.

Consistency – It may be the hobgoblin of little minds, but when the product has one folder name in the Character folder, a slightly different one in the Material folder and a third variation in the Pose folder, you go directly to my DO NOT BUY FROM list.  Vendors that do this show an incredible lack of attention to detail.  If a vendor screws up something a simple as this, I have to wonder what else have they messed up.

Figure's name (or your name) as the lead for a file name - If I have a dozen dresses named Dawn Dress #01, Dawn Dress #02, Dawn Dress #03 search function becomes useless, whereas Dress#01 for Dawn, Dress#02 for Dawn, Dress#03 for Dawn, is better for the end-user, regardless of whether they have 1 runtime or 60 runtimes.  As far as your name going first, please check your ego at the door.  It isn't about you, it's about the end-user.  The only place I should see your name is in the Geometries folder and the Textures folder, so that you don't accidentally overwrite obj and png files that some idiot vendor decided should be in the root geometries or texture folders.  (See what I did there?)

01, 02, 03, as leading file names - you are rendering the search function useless.  Don't be that vendor.  If I have to go & spend half an hour to rename dozens (or in one case, over a hundred) file names, yeah, I'll remember who you are, and not in a good way.

Leading !!!! characters - yeah, real cute, getting your folder to the top of the list.  Guess what, YOU AREN'T THE ONLY ONE DOING IT.  So stop it already.

And the worst offender  -  Naming material files MAT_name, MAT_name, MAT_name.  Again, this makes your product harder to use and find - try name_Material, name_Material, name_Material, this makes it easier to find.  Better yet, move to the 8+ year standard of an .mc6 - If it is in the Materials subfolder, as it should be, we know it is a material.

Poser 9+ issues……

Poser 9 and later comes with a scene folder to hold your .pz3 files - please start using it.  In addition, would it kill you to add a .png file to go with it?  You're going to make a render at some point – resize it to 91x91 and make the "Shruggy Guy" go away – Not adding a .png shows a lack of attention to detail.  It also makes me wonder if you have cut corners elsewhere.

I have noticed that starting with Poser 9, smarter vendors are adding a Morphs subfolder to the standard library to hold things like .pmd files and .pz2 files that the customers should not be fooling around with.  This is a really, really good idea.  It means fewer custom folders cluttering up a runtime (Note to end users, don't move those legacy folders like !DAZ into a Morphs folder – those files have hard-coded locations in them.)

Metadata follies…..

From the aforementioned "Understanding Content File Types from DAZ".  Submitted without comment:

'Metadata': These files are not needed for any application.  They were originally intended for use with other applications outside of DAZ Studio, but this is no longer necessary.  They may be disregarded.

Windows Follies:  I don't run the windows version of Poser/DS, so someone else will have to address these.

**OSX Follies: ** We haven't had to use Macconverter for over well over a decade now.  Obviously, vendors that develop on Windows have no idea what this product is or did.  It converted Poser 3 content to formats that Poser 4 could read.  Now, not only do you know what it does, you should realize how pointless the program is in 2013.  So please, stop sending your customers on a wild goose-chase looking for www.softrabbit.de. The website went dark about a decade ago.  There is truly no telling how many sales some of you have cost yourselves by telling users this.

We don't use .rsr or .pict files anymore either - The software portion that could actually read them was chucked, along with a lot of obsolete code with the release of Poser 8.

If you lead off a filename with the # character, OSX can't read the .png or .jpg, so don't do that.

Ego Folders*, or "Where's my brick…….."*

I realize that getting vendors to dump their ego subfolders is a bridge too far, but I do want to point out that:

   a.  Your product isn't the only product in my runtime.  Hiding your products in ego folders makes your products harder to find, harder to use, and me less likely to purchase your products.  Especially if you are also doing some of the stupid stuff I mentioned earlier under file/folder names & conventions.  I have a list of vendors I won't buy from even if they made the "rug that tied the room together" – why would you want to go on that list?

   b.  If you make a add-on pack for a product, put the name of the product in the folder, i.e. <Add-on pack name> for .  If you do this, it makes it easier for people who aren't anal-retentive about runtime structure to actually find and use your magnificent add-on pack.  (I am not being sarcastic here – I have bought literally hundreds of items that I never would have purchased if it weren't for another vendor making a cool add on pack for a product.  You are truly the value-added part of the equation.)

 Note to the people that are too cheap to upgrade their computer/software - Right now (August '13 ed), there are over 1,400 1st Generation Xeon Dell workstations over on ebay.  (I just looked.)

You can pick one up for as little as $150 (including shipping).  No, that isn't a misprint.  Lots of them are coming off lease, and they are being dumped for pennies on the dollar - as an added bonus, they will plow through rendering faster than a new i3 or i5 computer will - just sayin'. 

Did I mention you could replace those dual cores for quad cores (giving you 8 cores for your render engine for about 80 additional dollars) and more performance than an i7?

If you are hell-bent on getting a new computer – a perfectly suitable one for Poser/DS can be had for around $250.

Poser 9 is on Amazon for $60 (August '13)- the price of about 4 good outfits – and you now have access to weight mapped figures and genesis too, if you are willing to deal with DSON.

End old rant.

Quote - On my end, this is done for DAZ support, plain and simple. Poser has a MAT room...... Daz does not. Daz has access to the POSE library....

Does this make sence?!

As I mentioned earlier, you are correct in terms of DS3 - it can not read the Poser Material folder.  However, DS 4+ (I believe - defiinitely DS 4.5+) and on CAN read the Poser Material folder, and can read mc6 files as well ;)

too long, didn't read...(no offence intended)

I don't think anyone who makes content knowingly supports poser 4. Everything i've seen is p6 and above. If they say p4, they are too lazy to wiki if they have a quick question about "when was X feature added.

Quote - too long, didn't read...(no offence intended)

 

I don't think anyone who makes content knowingly supports poser 4. Everything i've seen is p6 and above. If they say p4, they are too lazy to wiki if they have a quick question about "when was X feature added.

 

If you had read it, you would know that P6+ & DS4.5 both support .mc6s.  They say it (P6 compatibiltiy), but they don't actually know what it means.

Quote - too long, didn't read...(no offence intended)

 

And I didn't intend that to come across as scolding, so my apologies if it did - reading through long threads can defintely be a challenge!

What I was meaning to do was agree with you that there ARE certain situations where using pz2 mat poses makes sense even today, which some people seem to feel is unreasonable.  Many DS users did not upgrade to DS4.   

It's really not that big of a deal. With as many vendors as there are, the long-running methods aren't likely going to change much any time soon. Many of them likely don't even pay attention to the forums since that's not where the bulk of their customers are.

SSGBryan is correct that the idea that V4 requires pz2 files instead of mc6 files is a complete misconception. V3 would have required this, and even then it was only due to the non-existence of mc6 files through the majority of her reign. It's possible that the innitial release of V4 was listed as being Poser 5 compatible, and if so then .mc6 files wouldn't have worked because they didn't come about until Poser 6. But V4.2 and M4 both install with .mc6 files in the material room with their default textures. So really the only explanation for the continued use of .pz2 files for textures is due to old habbits. There is no real reason to use them now. 

Regardless, I'm beginning to regret having started this thread. I don't buy a lot of 3rd party content. I buy the figures I need to work on for my clients and utilities that make that work faster and easier. It's rare that I buy anything for my own use unless its something that I really like, or if I want to do some add-on work. So I'm really not familiar with the way a lot of vendors package their content. Seeing files that don't belong in various places based on how the library is structured bugs me. I have my own runtime that all my custom work goes in but it's structured exactly the same as the stock library. I've never bothered to customize the stock library. I shouldn't need to. 

As for naming conventions, the underscores and the run-on words is a common practice even in the pro CG world. Some software still requires it, and a lot of studios run on custom versions of Linux, they don't use Mac or Windows anything. I'm not sure if the naming conventions are a requirement of Linux or not (i don't use Linux). Maybe it's just one of those old habbits that have never died, like .pz2 files instead of .mc6 files. When I name my files, I always capitalize the first letter of each word accept for the first (usually). It makes it easy to read without spaces. Sometimes spaces in a file name can corrupt the file depending on what program you're trying to open it in, so there is that too. 

Ego folders help to keep things organized as long as they don't have annoying symbols in front of their names that screws up the alphabetical order. And you can thank DAZ for starting the !!EgoFolderTrend. I guess they did that so that all their figures stayed at the top of the figure list to make it easier for people to find, but it didn't take long for other vendors to figure it out and start out-doing them with the same approach. 

~Shane

One thing I do try and do as a vendor is to place all of my stuff in the same set of folders...

If the figure is found in say "mechs" (for example) in the figures library (this also includes any conforming add-ons for said figure), the poses, mat poses, and such will be found under the same folder name in the poses library and any props under the same name in the props library... it made sense to me to do it that way for ease of organization and consistancy...

I have to admit  I'm guilty of "vanity" folder names... I always place everything in folders that start with "Chris's...", but here again I try to ensure some consistancy... if I make ships then they would all go in a folder labeled "Chris's Ships"... poses, mats etc would go into folders with this same name and separated into subfolders as needed... props to the same name and separated into subfolders for specific figures as well...

Maybe not a great solution but I try... atleast this way all my stuff can be found under a consistant set of names...

Speaking as an end user... (I am one as well as a vendor)

 I do have to agree about the added exclamation points etc added in front of folder names... it's annoying... I can deal with the vendor adding their name to a folder (it makes it easy to remember which artist made what and in fact I've found this handy when people have asked about something used in a render) but why add un-needed numbers, symbols, etc, to a folder name...

 I also get a bit annoyed when a figure is under one folder name, the poses under another, and the props under a 3rd name... it makes it very hard to find items, poses etc at times...

It was seeing complaints about things like this in forums in the first place that led to my decision to make sure that everything could be found under the same name in each library section...

If you have a PC how do ya make ya content ya sell or give away work on a MAC ?

ssgbryan helpdaz.zendesk.com/entries/22…  Booked marked
Got any more useful links for vendors ?

Quote - If you have a PC how do ya make ya content ya sell or give away work on a MAC ?

All of the poser content files (except the .png) are text files. 

Fascinating how short the collective memory is.

I've been posering for almost 10 years. Here's the story I learned about !!! prefix

It has nothing to do with ego. It is simply this:

In earlier versions of Poser (which were still widely in use when I started) there was a flaw in the library. It could only show 100 items per folder. Period.

So guess how many vendors got complaints that their product doesn't work - it doesn't show up when I install it!!! You suck! 

Then one really bright vendor figured out that the files are listed in ASCII alphabetical order, and the ! character comes before all the printable characters that exist. (It is ascii code 33, the lowest number that shows a glyph.)

So they solved their customer support problem by putting one ! in front.

Then other vendors saw the same problem, and solved it by one-upping the ! with !!. This made them first in the list, and customer support problems dropped to zero for a while.

Then the first smart vendor, who is now getting complaints from the unwashed masses again, changed their prefix to !!!, thus making them first again.

And so on, until E-Frontier or Smith Micro (can't remember which it was, but it's the same Poser crew) finally got smart and expanded the number of items that would show. 

Quote - Then the first smart vendor, who is now getting complaints from the unwashed masses again, changed their prefix to !!!, thus making them first again. And so on, until E-Frontier or Smith Micro (can't remember which it was, but it's the same Poser crew) finally got smart and expanded the number of items that would show.

Smart for some vendors who were experiencing problems, yes.  However, it became a highly abused practice, much to the frustration of the end-user.  If the vendor's name began with A-D, there was very little danger they were being shaved off the library visibility list.  That is, until everyone started adding glyphs just to appear first, and pushing everyone else further down the list, destroying the very reason for the practice in the first place.  It became a rat-race of who had the most glyphs before their vanity folder's name.

Quote - Fascinating how short the collective memory is.

I've been posering for almost 10 years. Here's the story I learned about !!! prefix

It has nothing to do with ego. It is simply this:

In earlier versions of Poser (which were still widely in use when I started) there was a flaw in the library. It could only show 100 items per folder. Period. 

That I honetsly didn't know... I got into 3d after it'd become a standard practice and the rat race had begun to see how many "!" or other glyphs could be added infront of a folder name (a practice I didn't like and don't use). Was a smart solution I must say... too bad it became abused like it did...

FWIW, you also used to be able to put MAT Pose files in the Camera folder also in P4 (uuuuurgh...lol).

I haven't used MAT Pose files in years. Why should I when I have mt5 and mc6 files? ;)

Laurie

Ahh the potholes in memory lane..............

My pet hate is multiple ego folders for one vendor because his three products create "Joe Blow", Joe_Blow" and "!Joe Blow" folders.

Quote - When I name my files, I always capitalize the first letter of each word accept for the first (usually). It makes it easy to read without spaces. 

I tend to do the same. I also try to keep filenames as short as legibility allows so that the whole filename will always display. I often come across names that are so long that the last part (usually the important bit) isn't visible in certain viewports and you can't see the difference between things like:

"Cool Special Occasion Outfit For Victoria 4 - Blouse.cr2"

"Cool Special Occasion Outfit For Victoria 4 - pants.cr2"

because they both show up as "Cool Special Occasion Outfit F..."

Quote - Consistency – It may be the hobgoblin of little minds, but when the product has one folder name in the Character folder, a slightly different one in the Material folder and a third variation in the Pose folder, you go directly to my DO NOT BUY FROM list. 

The trouble is that there's no single, central "Best Practice" guide on this stuff. If you are trying to figure out how to do it and you look at 10 examples in your own runtime you'll find 10 different ways, most of them flawed.

I think Poser itself started the rot with stock content folder naming that was all over the place and no naming consistency at all between the various cr2, obj and texture files which made up a figure. Even the library structure displays "Figures" and "Expressions" but the folder structure behind that calls them "Character" and "Face" (and there's another unconnected "Figures" and "Head" folder in the runtime). 

Thanks E.Clarke and Rorkonn! Good thing I kept my old G5!

BB-I still have old !!! Content. I forgot there was a reason for doing that!

Quote - I think OS 10 could still Macs still had Classic  OS9 bundled with them. and OS10.2 could run it in emulation mode.  But after OS10.2 Apple killed the Classic envioronment. No Intel Mac can run it at all. You'll probably need a Pre Intel Mac or a Power Mac to run it. And don't forget that Poser 4 was a memory hog.

Quote - Now on whether or not I make MAT Files?  I haven't made them in several years now, thankfully.  They are inferior to Material Collections, which work on Standalone Props - MAT Poses do not (unless you hack them a certain way and a Figure is in the scene).

There's actually another problem with pz2 MATs that I suddenly remembered really annoys me.

Let's say you've got a clothed character, and you want to apply a MAT to the clothing, and fail to notice that you've got the character selected instead. The pz2 will proceed to add those material zone to the character (which won't show up, since there's no geometry associated with those materials). For a one-off image, this isn't a huge deal, but if you're reusing that character, you have to either manually remove those extra materials or use one of the add-on tools you can get that will allowyou to do it.

And it's not just clothing materials applied accidentally: I don't know how many character MAT files I've used where when I go into the material room after applying it I see extra materials created because somehow there was a material named in the MAT that was slightly different from what it was supposed to be: variations on "tear" and "nostril" are especially common.

With an MC6, however, when you apply it Poser will specifically point out if there are materials that aren't present in what you are applying it do and ask if you want to create them. If you click on "no", those extra material zones aren't created. It saves much grief.

As other people have said, MAT poses (and MOR poses and sub-dividing MAT poses) were originally a hack on the cr2 file. But when the file was renamed with a pz2 extension, Poser would apply the MAT or MOR as if it was a regular pose file.

Then, because pose folders were filling up with MAT poses, people found that they could change the extention to cm2 and fill the Camera library with MAT poses. (This is also why camera files can include code to hide and show the walls of a room.)

In Poser 5, e-frontier decided to officially support MAT poses by calling them material files, but these just affected one material. In Poser 6, the full material collection file was added. And in Poser 9/ Poser Pro 2012, Smith Micro made the materials library available without needing to go into the Material Room.

To me, arguing over MAT poses and material collection files is like the arguing which version of Microsoft Word is better: the one with the usual File, Edit, View menu or the version with the ribbon. Many people are used to the File, Edit, View menu, but they should move on and get used to "progess", right?

And, of course, content creators can't win: for every person who says they want the "new way" of using material collection files, another person will say they prefer the "old way" of using MAT poses. Should a product zip file contain both MAT poses and material collection files? No, because then customers will get confused and ask which files they should use.

Quote - And in Poser 9/ Poser Pro 2012, Smith Micro made the materials library available without needing to go into the Material Room.

Actually, that was Poser 8/Pro 2010, though the point still stands.

You know, it might just be a good idea if someone could to a poll, that would have the greatest chance of catching the largets number of users, to find out which version of Poser a person uses the most. The results would have to be made publicly available to benefit vendors.

But it would let people know just which version of Poser has the largets number of users, and they could tailor their products to that version (with extra files to handle features that later versions have as well).

Quote - > Quote - And in Poser 9/ Poser Pro 2012, Smith Micro made the materials library available without needing to go into the Material Room.

Actually, that was Poser 8/Pro 2010, though the point still stands.

 

You know, it might just be a good idea if someone could to a poll, that would have the greatest chance of catching the largets number of users, to find out which version of Poser a person uses the most. The results would have to be made publicly available to benefit vendors.

But it would let people know just which version of Poser has the largets number of users, and they could tailor their products to that version (with extra files to handle features that later versions have as well).

The poll would need to be kept up to date & would need to inclued DSON & DAZ Studio also.

Quote - You know, it might just be a good idea if someone could to a poll, that would have the greatest chance of catching the largets number of users, to find out which version of Poser a person uses the most. The results would have to be made publicly available to benefit vendors.

A poll is a good idea in theory, but it has a few built-in problems: how to publicize the poll so people know about it and then getting the most number of people to answer it. The poll won't do much good if 100 or 1,000 people answer it... especially if sites like Renderosity might have over 250,000 members.

Then if only 1,000 people answer the poll and 500 say they use PP2012, you can't say "50% of the Poser community uses PP2012". You could only say "Of the people who took the poll, 50% said they use PP2012". And it doesn't help it 500 people say they use PP2012 when 249,500 Renderosity members and X number of people at DAZ don't use it.

That is always the problem when a question such as this is asked in the forum.  Even if we all agreed that MATS in the pose library was a good thing our opinion would not carry much weight as the number of Poser users that read forums is a very small minority.  The number that actually post is even smaller and within that small number there is rarely widespread agreement.

The same situations exist in another currnet thread about the popularity of conforming clothes.  Here we could all agree that dynamic would be best but if any vendor catered for just active forum members they would not make enough profit to keep them in underwear for a week.  With the exception of those that did not wear any.

Well since I only have Pro 14.
I'm making content for Pro 14.
I couldn't make content for an earlier version of Poser that I don't have.

We could guess all day what Poser version users buys the most content.
For all I know 99.9% of all market sells are for P4 users.
So I may never even make a wooden nichle as a vendor.

but if ya want to get rich ,go to wallstreet.

The poll results could be updated at about the midway point between Poser releases.

Advertise the poll on the major Poser website front pages, and Smith Micro could send out an email mentioning it.

And like most polls, the point isn't get assume you've gotten everyone, but to know that you're only looking at a cross-section of the user base. Also, all it would be is an infographic, vendors are free to do what they want with the data, even ignore it if they so choose.

Quote - ...as the number of Poser users that read forums is a very small minority.

Do we have concrete info on that? Has Smith Micro released Poser sales data? Maybe the Poser community is smaller than people assume, or the number of Poser users that read the forums (any Poser forums) could be larger than expected. Remember that there are people who read but never post as well.

RDNA : Members 93,732

DAZ : Total Registered Members: 1,229,395

CGTalk : Members: 556,647

Quote - ...as the number of Poser users that read forums is a very small minority.

Do we have concrete info on that? Has Smith Micro released Poser sales data? Maybe the Poser community is smaller than people assume, or the number of Poser users that read the forums (any Poser forums) could be larger than expected. Remember that there are people who read but never post as well.

No there is no concrete info and I doubt the ever will be but if the number of people that post here and the other popular Poser forums are anywhere near a majority I really do not see how Smith Micro could be making any profit out of Poser.  Even if everyone on the forum upgraded to the latest version I do not see it being viable and posts show that many forum users are not using the latest versions of Poser.

So no concrete information but I still think it would be a mistake for any company or vendor to base their commercial plans purely on what is said in any forum.  Not that I am knocking forums I find them informative and useful but when it comes to speaking for the Poser Community in a single voice any forum is severely limited.

what I get about public companys.
it's all about the stock.
so the idea is to release a upgrade.
so SM stock will go up.
I don't even know if it matters that much to the stock ,
if they sell 1 or 1000 upgrades.

all I know is public companys don't survive like we do with money.

if a public company stock goes under then there done for even thou they have
property buildings PC's software etc etc.

if I have just 1 PC and some app's I'm a long long long ways from done for.

they say they woun't close a slow franchise store cause it will make the stock drop.