I made a scene in poser that I want to render in Blender. I export the props with no problem. But Blender never finds the textures unless I copy the images into the folder with the objs. Is there a way to have it look for the images in the various folders in my runtimes?

If you open the OBJ file or the MTL file in a text editor, you can manually change the path locations of your textures.  However, this should be something you can adjust on the export end.  I don't have Poser, so I don't know the export settings capabilities, but there should be an area in there where you can specify a relative or absolute location for your textures or allow you to enable the option to copy textures to the export location folder with your OBJ. 

Thanks. I hadn't thought about the problem being with what Poser exported. I was able to fix that and Blender's finding it.

If you export the items from Poser in FBX and I also think Collada format they will create a texture folder that if they are saved in the same location when you import them into Blender it should grab the textures automatically the only hiccup that happens sometimes si the textures might get applied upside down due to Poser Y is the horizontal Axis and Blender that Axis is Z same thing use to happen with Zbrush textures in the past. 

I'm still having trouble with FBX mangling the poses and I was trying to avoid having duplicate images. Whenever I want something I can't do in Poser, I turn to Blender. I usually use the collect scene inventory script to copy the images. But that can fill up a hard drive pretty fast. Having an absolute path helps.

FBX is quickly becoming the industry standard file type, even replacing OBJ as the preferred exchange format in some software packages.  The problem with FBX is that some software companies have not been able to adopt FBX in its full feature capacity because of some red tape with the Autodesk FBX SDK.  I know Blender actually had some issues with FBX early on and there are other software packages that simply do not support all the amazing features that Autodesk has packed into the FBX format due to licensing limitations or limited access to the SDK.  In some cases, OBJ is actually more widely supported but lacks many of the higher-end functionality that FBX offers.  I feel like FBX will eventually replace OBJ as the most widely used format.  It already has in the Autodesk and game dev ecosystems, but some software packages may take some time to catch up with that transition.

I agree with what LuxXeon is saying FBX is fast becoming more of a standard but there are still incompatibility due to  Autodesk FBX SDK there is a new paid add-on called Better FBX import-export on Blender Market that looks very promising. I can not post the link to it since it would be violating the rules but but if you look it up and see the demo reel on it you might consider it the reason I bring it up is that Poser's FBX export is more compliant or up to date with Autodesk FBX standard than Blender so this add-on may offer the features you need to make your importing process easier. 

OK, I took a look at the Better FBX Import  & Export plugin at Blender Market, and the person who developed this tool stated:

"Blender is lack of native FBX support, when we import some older and newer FBX files, it often fails.

So I made a better FBX importer and exporter with official FBX SDK from scratch."

Since LuxXeon stated above:

"I know Blender actually had some issues with FBX early on and there are other software packages that simply do not support all the amazing features that Autodesk has packed into the FBX format due to licensing limitations or limited access to the SDK."

I'm wondering how this person who created this Blender add-on was able to use the official FBX SDK from scratch.  Maybe I'm overthinking this, but it just makes me wonder if he has an official copy of Autodesk's FBX SDK, and how did he get it.

The addon does look interesting. For most of my needs at the moment, the obj works for now. But there have been a few times I would have liked to import animation. So I may have to give the addon serious thought. Unfortunately, with the sale here, I've spent my CG budget for the month so it will have to wait. But Christmas is next month. I may be able to get it then.

To answer your question Miss B the FBX SDK is freely available from Autodesk to developer's similar to the Poser or Daz Studio SDK are available for developers to create add-ons and or plug ins. If I am not mistaken the and I can be really off on this Blender does a good job importing FBX that predate 2011 or 2016 which is around the time that Autodesk started making major upgrades to the FBX format with the list below of the different versions of FBX you use to have to use the Autodesk FBX Converter between these versions because one version was more optimized for XNA or XSI as well as Maya's FBX was totally different than 3DS Max's this one reason OBJ were the got to format but OBJ is limited in what information will export and import and scale is always an issue. Hope this info helps some

 6.x (FBX 2006, FBX 2009, FBX 2010)

7.1 (FBX 2011)

7.2 (FBX 2012)

7.3 (FBX 2013)

7.4 (FBX 2014)

Lobo3433 posted at 9:27 PM Tue, 30 November 2021 - #4431101

To answer your question Miss B the FBX SDK is freely available from Autodesk to developer's similar to the Poser or Daz Studio SDK are available for developers to create add-ons and or plug ins. Hope this info helps some

It certainly does Lobo.  I never developed anything for DS or Poser, so never thought about having to get the SDK files for either, but now that you've explained it's freely available to developers, that makes me feel a whole lot better. 

Miss B posted at 12:09 PM Tue, 30 November 2021 - #4431080

OK, I took a look at the Better FBX Import  & Export plugin at Blender Market, and the person who developed this tool stated:

I use the "Better fbx importer & exporter" myself, this plugin works great. You can also export the obj format with it.

If you don't want to duplicate the texture files then when exporting from Poser you can check "Use full texture paths"  in the Export Options dialogue box.  This will write the texture paths to the objs mtl file.   Another way is once the obj file has been imported into Blender go to File>External Data>Find Missing Files and then navigate your way to the textures folder in the Runtime folder of your Poser installation.

keppel posted at 7:55 AM Wed, 1 December 2021 - #4431110

If you don't want to duplicate the texture files then when exporting from Poser you can check "Use full texture paths"  in the Export Options dialogue box.  This will write the texture paths to the objs mtl file.   Another way is once the obj file has been imported into Blender go to File>External Data>Find Missing Files and then navigate your way to the textures folder in the Runtime folder of your Poser installation.

Thank you keppel for sharing that information never even thought of that as a option to do with OBJ exports  

NobbyC posted at 3:28 AM Wed, 1 December 2021 - #4431104

Miss B posted at 12:09 PM Tue, 30 November 2021 - #4431080

OK, I took a look at the Better FBX Import  & Export plugin at Blender Market, and the person who developed this tool stated:

I use the "Better fbx importer & exporter" myself, this plugin works great. You can also export the obj format with it.

Good to know Nobby, thanks. 

keppel posted at 7:55 AM Wed, 1 December 2021 - #4431110

If you don't want to duplicate the texture files then when exporting from Poser you can check "Use full texture paths"  in the Export Options dialogue box.  This will write the texture paths to the objs mtl file.   Another way is once the obj file has been imported into Blender go to File>External Data>Find Missing Files and then navigate your way to the textures folder in the Runtime folder of your Poser installation.

Excellent information keppel.  Making a note and saving for future reference. 

The FBX SDK is free, but the format is considered a "Closed Format", which means you can only open FBX models in software programs that have added the proper SDK API. This is a bit of a problem for Blender.  Blender is GPL licensed, which means it can't link to "closed source" libraries.  Software applications that use the official FBX API tend not to have any problems, but that wasn't possible with Blender's license. 

Blender has done a great job recently at adding FBX functionality without using the FBX SDK, but there will be some things that aren't going to translate as perfectly as they would in the Autodesk API ecosystem.

Regarding the Better FBX Importer and Exporter addon, I'm not exactly sure how they did it.  Perhaps they're using the SDK somehow or maybe they've reverse engineered it?  I know from other sources that it is updated constantly to keep up with changes or add new features to the existing FBX integration.

So to be clear, the official Blender FBX addon is not using the Autodesk SDK.  Blender Foundation has basically reverse-engineered the FBX format because of the GPL licensing limitations.  The Better FBX addon, however, may be doing something different there.  I don't know.  I think they're doing it the same way Blender Foundation does it, except they're also incorporating more features that are useful to game developers and people who depend on the rigging and animation functions that FBX is most used for.

The default Blender FBX export has a very useful feature that will allow you to embed all textures into the models upon export so that you never really have to worry about file paths.  If you pick "Path Mode > Copy" and then press the icon next to the drop-down box, it will enable "Embed Mode".  This will ensure that all the textures in your selected objects will be exported with their textures in the exported files.  Whenever someone opens that FBX file, it will automatically extract those textures into the same folder as the FBX.  This means no more "missing texture" errors in other apps.  I don't know if Poser or Daz offer that feature, but it's extremely handy if you have textures located in many different directories on your drive.

LuxXeon posted at 5:48 PM Thu, 2 December 2021 - #4431195

Whenever someone opens that FBX file, it will automatically extract those textures into the same folder as the FBX.  This means no more "missing texture" errors in other apps.  I don't know if Poser or Daz offer that feature, but it's extremely handy if you have textures located in many different directories on your drive.

I noticed that with some recent file downloads, as they had separate folders for textures (or it might have said materials) when I unzipped it.  Now at least I know how that came about.

Miss B posted at 8:02 PM Thu, 2 December 2021 - #4431198

LuxXeon posted at 5:48 PM Thu, 2 December 2021 - #4431195

Whenever someone opens that FBX file, it will automatically extract those textures into the same folder as the FBX.  This means no more "missing texture" errors in other apps.  I don't know if Poser or Daz offer that feature, but it's extremely handy if you have textures located in many different directories on your drive.

I noticed that with some recent file downloads, as they had separate folders for textures (or it might have said materials) when I unzipped it.  Now at least I know how that came about.

Yes, the beauty of the embed feature is that you really don't even need to think about texture path locations for the most part.  When you embed the textures into the FBX, it's seamless to the end-user of that file.  All they have to do is load the FBX into their software of choice and the textures will appear to load perfectly fine.  Behind the scenes, however, the embedded textures have been unpacked into the same directory that the FBX file is located.  It's similar to packing textures in a .blend file.  It's a great way to ensure the end-user gets the textures the very first time they load the model, which has always been a big problem with legacy file formats like OBJ.

I don't think many people know that feature exists in the software, because I'll still get FBX files from Blender users with missing texture paths once in a while.