At one time the consensus seemed to be that you should turn off the "Use external binary morph targets" option in preferences. Apparently they were the source of many problems. Is that still the case with, say, P10 and after?

And what's the advantage of PMDs anyway? I've read about it in the manual, but I still don't get it. Explain it to me like I'm 5.

It was still a problem for me on PP2014. Not sure about PP11 but I have them turned off just to be safe.

What problems were you having with pmd's? They've been fixed for quite a while now. If there's an issue then it needs to be reported so that it can be investigated.

No more problems with PMD's

(ElZagna) "PMDs: Are they still a problem?"

No, that has been fixed.

(ElZagna) "...and what's the benefit, anyway?"

Much smaller scene file size.

Here is Nerd's explanation of PMD's and the resolved stability issues: Nerd3d Graphics

That article is 10 years old. Still relevant in terms of function, but there have been other improvements and stability since then.

seachnasaigh posted at 8:38AM Wed, 06 July 2016 - #4274744

(ElZagna) "...and what's the benefit, anyway?"

Much smaller scene file size. OK, but how does that work? If you break your data into two files, you still have the same amount of data.

If you inject morphs into a cr2 and then save that cr2, you are saving a copy of that morph inside the cr2. With pmd files, the cr2 references the morph from its original location, but does not contain the morph data within the cr2 itself.

"OK, but how does that work? If you break your data into two files, you still have the same amount of data."

Actually the pmd file is a binary file, which effectivly compresses the data. It reads faster off of the disk, thus loads faster.

Bill

I'm using PP2012 on Win7 Pro x64.

Had problems with PMDs and they disappeared after I stopped using PMDs.

Regarding file sizes, I ran some tests, and the results were surprising. For these tests I set "Use file compression" to ON in the Preferences. I loaded V4, and then INJ Morphs++ V4.pz2. When I saved that figure with "Use binary morph targets" OFF I got a single CRZ file of 10,481 KB. When I saved it with "Use binary morph targets" ON, I got a CRZ file of 495 KB and a PMD file of 16,746 KB or a total of 17,241. Much bigger!

So if you are using file compression you end up with LARGER files by going with PMDs. I know that PMDs aren't just compressed files, and I assume that they are optimized for Poser, so perhaps a CR2 or CRZ file has to be reformatted within Poser which would add to the load time and result in similar sizes of data inside of Poser.

Still, I remain puzzled as to the advantage of PMDs.

Now if you added 10 V4's with her morphs to your scene, then each of those V4's will have their own 10,481 kb cr2s, because the morphs are embedded into each of the cr2's. If you had 10 V4's using all those morphs from that one pmd file, then you would have 10 V4's each with a 495 kb cr2, and all of them would reference that one pmd.

So you can do the math - 10 x 10,481 kb = 104,810 kb vs (10 x 495 kb) + 16,746kb = 21,696 kb

Now which scene is smaller?

galaxiefilm posted at 8:29PM Wed, 06 July 2016 - #4274772

I'm using PP2012 on Win7 Pro x64.

Had problems with PMDs and they disappeared after I stopped using PMDs.

Here is a direct quote from Nerd3D's website regarding past issues with pmd's:

PMD is safe now. In Poser 8/2010 and even more in Poser 9/2012 PMD got a major overhaul and a bugathon like never before. The testers and developers went to great >lengths to hunt down and kill all the bugs in PMDs. I've been running with PMD on for years and haven't encountered a new issue since Poser 9 SR1. That's when my last >PMD bug (which was pretty obscure) was tracked down and fixed.

http://www.nerd3d.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=13

I think it depends on what figure you use as to what problems you might run into.

AmbientShade posted at 11:49PM Wed, 06 July 2016 - #4274823

Now if you added 10 V4's with her morphs to your scene, then each of those V4's will have their own 10,481 kb cr2s, because the morphs are embedded into each of the cr2's. If you had 10 V4's using all those morphs from that one pmd file, then you would have 10 V4's each with a 495 kb cr2, and all of them would reference that one pmd.

So you can do the math - 10 x 10,481 kb = 104,810 kb vs (10 x 495 kb) + 16,746kb = 21,696 kb

Now which scene is smaller?

Well, that makes sense. Of course, I've never used more than 2 Vickies in a scene before, so I don't think the PMDs would help much in those cases. Furthermore, whenever I do use 2 Vickies, they are two different figures (or models), i.e., one might be Aurelie from Thorne and the other Adrinna from RebelMommy. Different CR2s and different PMDs.

Yes, AmbientShade. I read Charles' paragraph before about that.

Alas, my reality was different.

I don't know why.

This thread was triggered when I decided to take another look at DAZ and tried to import a couple of figures. One was just a CR2 and the other was a CR2 + PMD. The one with the PMD had problems loading into DAZ. That's what got me to thinking about PMDs. It could be that the PMD problems have been worked out for Poser but not DAZ, but it could also be that the problems I ran into were completely unrelated to PMDs.

I'm still not clear on the benefits of PMDs, and I hope someone can give me an answer that makes sense to me.

PMD's have one advantage, you don't need channels for adding a morph, unlike an Injection file (even with read scripts). Note that is the same thing the EXP morphs (that Daz uses for its Mil 4 morphs.) accomplishes.

You can use EXP morphs for this same purpose as PMD morphs and then be compatible with both Poser and Daz Studio.

Oh. OK. Well, I'm afraid I didn't understand any of that. ;)

ElZagna posted at 8:14PM Sun, 10 July 2016 - #4275142

Oh. OK. Well, I'm afraid I didn't understand any of that. ;)

If you use an injection pose to add morphs there needs to be a channel, defined in the cr2, to allow it and that channel is specified in the injection pose. So adding morphs tended to step on each other.

PMD and EXP morphs both avoid this issue. EXP morphs have the added advantage that they work in both DS and Poser.

Bruce, I was under the impression that ExP morphs required an existing channel (in Poser, at least), which is why Generation 4 figures required initialization. If I'm mistaken, how is the channel created when it's injected?

To be on-topic, I create .pmd injections, but I save with .pmds off; to me it's not worth the potential loss of time if a scene is corrupted...

IIRC, it is the major difference with the EXP morphs over what came before.

The CR2 does not carry the channels. It has been a long time since I dug into those, LOL, though, so exactly how it works, I have to admit, I don't remember.

I do know they are not the same as channels from before Victoria 4.2.