Hello fellow Poser Users,

I'm sure you have already noticed what I am about to describe.

I installed the new version of Poser a few days ago and downloaded the content also.
This new content is automatically installed into the Included folder.

I really think this folder in as necessary as a third leg.
We already have a Downloads folder, whom I didn't use either.

I like to have all things related to a figure in the same folder, at least in the same runtime.
The way it is now, I have to search in two runtimes and in each runtime also in two or more folders to find the Item I like to use.
A prominent example is the LaFemme character, pose and material folder.

LaFemme is part of the Poser Product since Poser 11 and I kept those runtime files as my main runtime.
With each update this older files got overwritten but the original structure stayed intact.
Until Poser 13 and it's new feature >>Purchases<< came along.

If there is a reason for having Poser 11, Poser 12, Poser 13 and Poser 13 Included runtimes installed, please tell me.
I considere it a waste of time and disk space.
To my knowledge, the files in question are identical.
Ontop of all, some items are hidden in sub-folders or two LaFemme folder are sitting next to each other in the same library folder. Why?

So I manually search for the doubles and merge all runtime folders to one complete Poser 13 Runtime.

Would be interesting to know if someone else made similar experiences and it might be worth to file a ticket to the help desk.

Have a nice sunday and greetings from Germany!

Agreed.  Usually I'll just grab all the content in both those other sets of Runtimes and merge them with the main Poser 13 Runtime and let it overwrite what's there as these folder, esp the Included, usually has a more updated set of files.  The think that gets me is that in Poser you will not be able to delete certain runtimes if they are empty.  BAD code to me! 

Well, if you are brand new to Poser you have nothing so the way Poser installs is perfect for that person.  The bare necessary files are loaded into Poser 13 Content:Runtime.  Those would be the props cameras, light etc. That is with just the reduced sized program installer.  With Poser 11 or 12 you had a 1.6 GB file to download and install.  Now you have a ~450MB file.  If you want the extra files those are loaded into the included folder-Runtime.  You only have to download the included content once.  During testing with nothing installed ( a pure blank system ) just as if I was a newbie and this was my first time installing, I ran just the program installer and when the scene selector appeared anything with LaFemme will fail to load since the content for her is located in the included runtime.  

There are 4 runtimes-folders you cannot change remove: Those are Poser 13 content, download, included and purchases.  Download has nothing and will stay blank unless you put something in it.  Purchases can now be set to point to a different location, such as Poser 12 or 11 Purchases.  Included only has to be downloaded once and if you don't like the way it is organized then take and move the content to some other runtime, just not one of the four I listed above.  Poser 13 Content is always updated with every download of the program and it has the basics needed to make the program run.  I would not install any content into that runtime.

As far as Purchases goes, I use that to install content from the store then move it into another runtime and organize the way I want.  Purchases is my sandbox.

Since you cannot remove or rename the 4 folder listed the next best thing is to put them at the bottom of the library.  go to C:|Users|your_name|AppData|Roaming|Poser|13 and edit the file LibraryPrefs.xml.  Edit the file when Poser is closed or else it will over-write the changes.  Move the lines that have the names of the folders to the bottom of the list of <ContentFolder....>.

Not sure what putting in a ticket is going to do since you installed the content first, moved things around and then loaded the content a second time.  Poser will not remove anything, just overwrite existing content where the names are the same.  That is way it is very important not to save a modified version of a file back to the same location it came from.  Especially if it is one where Poser installs to.

What RAMworks has done is bad in that the Poser 13 content is always overwritten with each new install of the program.  So that if you have your LeFemme files located there and with the next update Poser decides to include LaFemme as part of the basic content then at every install your more updated version will be overwritten with the basic version.

I think most peoples Poser content is generally a complete mess if they have had many versions over the years.

Basically every version has moved something somewhere else, compounding the problem.

Check how many times Relaxed Talk 01 png is on your system.............

I have beta Poser tested for years, and it is currently in 105 different places on this system, under every Poser figure it was added too, in multiple runtimes.....

Duplicate remover programs can be used, but they usually break things in Poser because there are many files with the same name, that are not the same at all.....

I gave up sorting Runtimes about Poser 8. Storage is cheap, and far better than breaking something by accident. I have better things to do with my time as well....

Why they keep moving things, is any ones best guess.... Why they used the same file names repeatedly for different files, who knows......

I have about 85 runtimes now, and multiple terabytes of content going back to Poser 3 or 4....... And a lot of it is installed more than once, and also backed up that way....

Thanks so far for the reply. 85 Runtimes? That's a lot! How do you keep track on what is inside of them? Unbelievable! I think I was misunderstood in part, sorry, as you probably know, English is not my native language.

I don't want to delete the Runtime folders named Download, Purchased or Include.

I will give you an example of what I meant.

After the blank install of Poser 13 and the download of the included content, there is a LaFemme folder in the character Library,  containing a Hair folder. If you open this folder, you will find a folder named OOT. It contains a conforming Hair figure.

At the first level in the character folder you will find a folder named OOT as well, who contains the very same item.

In the material folder the different skin shader for LaFemme are inside of the LaFemme folder. One of them, the default one, I guess, is also directly in the material folder listed.

That's the default, before I start merging the doubles. I find this a bit confusing, that's all.

Above is what should be in the default included content for character la Femme.  While Beta Testing I always try to make my system a complete blank for doing the installs of the program and content.  That way I don't have extra files mixing in with what should be the defaults.  Now it has been several months since I did the last install of the included content and they may have added some things, but they never announced that they did so and that it should be checked again.  

The easiest way to check to see if you have extra content mixing in with the included content downloads is real simple.  With Poser closed find where the Poser 13 content folder is located.  Inside that folder is a folder named included.  Rename that folder to something else.  I just put a Z infront of the name to remind me what it is and also it puts it at the bottom of the list when looking at the folder.  Restart Poser make sure the Included content folder is blank, as Poser will create a new Included folder whenit finds it missing.  Then just redownload the included folder again.  This way you have a straight from the factory install.

Poser normally will not delete any content, just reinstall over what exists.  If a file is located in the folder and has the same name then it is replaced.  however, if it located somewhere else or the name is changed then the old content will remain along with the new content.

Thank you, @Richard60.
I will follow your instructions and see where it leads.

Your English is fine, no worries there.

As far as how I keep track of things, I use a search engine called Everything on my system. It is very handy for finding things. The only bad part, is that you have to remember a partial name to find it thou. I have years of content, scene saves, etc.... Most people would be lost, but I can find things, lol.

Some of my runtimes may only have a few products in them, or literally one that I am currently working on.

So it may not be as bad as it first sounds.... Or it might be worse..... It works for me....

blackbonner posted at 2:15 PM Sun, 17 September 2023 - #4474733

Thanks so far for the reply. 85 Runtimes? That's a lot! How do you keep track on what is inside of them? Unbelievable! I think I was misunderstood in part, sorry, as you probably know, English is not my native language.

I don't want to delete the Runtime folders named Download, Purchased or Include.

I will give you an example of what I meant.

After the blank install of Poser 13 and the download of the included content, there is a LaFemme folder in the character Library,  containing a Hair folder. If you open this folder, you will find a folder named OOT. It contains a conforming Hair figure.

At the first level in the character folder you will find a folder named OOT as well, who contains the very same item.

In the material folder the different skin shader for LaFemme are inside of the LaFemme folder. One of them, the default one, I guess, is also directly in the material folder listed.

That's the default, before I start merging the doubles. I find this a bit confusing, that's all.

I have 98 runtimes in which I group similar content like a runtime for V4 another for Dawn and another for M4 and Dusk.  In addition there are runtimes for other groups such as space related content but space craft content made that a large runtime so I split that and now there I have a space runtime and a space craft runtime.  

The way I keep track is a run a separate database of all of my content which is updated every time I buy new content.  Each item of content includes details of the creator, the store used, which runtime it is assigned to, the date purchased and prom images of the content.  If a cannot find something I can search for it either by name, or creator and so on and that will point me to the runtime.  If it is not in that location for any reason or the files have become corrupted the data will show me the day, month and year it was purchased.  All my download zips are held in yearly folders, with monthly subfolders so i can go to the relevant month and find the original zip and install it again in the right runtime.   

All of my runtime database and downloaded zips have multiple back ups both local on web based. I have been using the system for around 14 years now and it works for me the only downside I have found is I need to populate the database before I race of and use my new content otherwise I forget to do it later.

Wow! Just Wow! That is a hell lot of work, you put in there.

Okay, for this to be the way you run this, you had to come up with this kind of structure on some point in time in which the runtimes were significantly smaller, right? Otherwise to put all this stuff in the place where it belongs, would be a very time consuming task, right?
I assume your runtimes have grown over time, item for item.
A few years ago, I made a similar approach, putting all the figures into seperate runtimes, including poses, clothing and such. But I desided to merge those runtimes into one, because I fund it rather difficult to deside on each item where it should go.
There are several items who are meant for two figures, like poses for M3 and V3, or hair that can be used for many figures. Some of the very old items came with textures who wasn't properly named, so I had to search for them in several runtimes manually.
But I think your way of managing your runtimes is interesting.
I'm curious, what product do you use to create this database?
I know there are many scribts and tools for Poser out there.
I don't use most of them because for my workflow I don't really need them, but this looks very helpful.
   

The database is called the 3D Content Database 1.1 and was published by Imagination Illustrated, I purchased it way back in November 2007 as it was on sale for $9.98 rather then $19.95.  I purchased it from Daz, hence the reference to Platinum Club Item, which also includes Prime items in may case.  Sadly the database has not been around for a number for years now but I think there are some based on Windows Explorer.

Keeping it up to date is not difficult, probably an hour spread across a month depending on how much content I buy and that includes installing the content and saving the download zip into the back up folders.  As you suggest it would be a massive task for anyone with even a small number of existing Runtimes.  That said I have been buying content since 2000 and I used my Daz account history to populate the database right back to 2000 doing a little each week.

It has other uses though, If I am looking for something for a render and I cannot think of anything I have in a runtime I can just run a search, for example vehicles.

Selecting anything from the list give me access to  Promo shots as well and the other data.

It does have a scary side though as it will list all of the content, and the amount of money I have spent on the hobby, over the last 23 years.

Oh yes, all the money I spend in the two decades...actually I'm quite happy not to be reminded of that fact on a regular bases  ;)

I'm not a programmer, but looking at the structur of the Database, I can imagine building something similar in Excel or Calc.
Would be cool to have a scribt that connect's the Library of Poser with this Database.
If I remember correctly, Poser does create an inverntory sheed (ContentLibrary_9.db) of it's librarys and provides meta data of products in the details tab of the library window, right?

The XML format files contain the metadata displayed in the details tab but not all content contains it, especially older content.  However, you have 2 options to input that information manually.  The details can be added directly to the details tab or use the Meta Builder Script which is more robust and contains more entry selections.  It is time-consuming but you can include documentation instructions for content use.

Since Poser already in the early stages supports multiple formats in every Library category I was able to reduce all runtimes into just one even that my runtime is having a size of over 5tb. The issue of duplicates was mainly caused having to build up for every section, Poses, Figures, Hair, Camera etc a easy to find structure, that actually is almost impossible to achieve.

You could buy fantastic packages that come with large amounts of separately sold addons and the mess got larger and larger building up a runtime that is easy and fast to use. After the launch of P 2010 Poser 8 this feature was open having it all at one place. i took the time resorting the runtime Clothing's with all what belongs to it came into one folder root in the figures. I now if I need a outfit just need to open the Figure folder having all the additional features there in subfolders. Same with Hair, and many other collections that had really confusing folder structures over multiple separated sections . This also solved the issue when loading a outfit then pose textures having to jump out of the pose root to just add a Pose for the model or a fitting skin pose for the doll . 

Actually it was not even a high time consuming reorganization as I just had to drop the Material Props for the appropriate Outfits into the main Figures outfit Folder, the time saved was gigantic since done it that way, and finally knew what belongs to what not having to search for the outfit textures in Poses or Material section as there all in the figure folder with the outfit. Knowing what belongs to it not having to search Props materials Poses Cam if there could be something that would als be needed for the outfit, or the Hair, or the Car.

Duplicates are the Past up to almost 100% , finding your self around is not a Labyrinth of folder structures over 9 sections, Poser makes really fun using that way saving your time to make your artworks rather then searching stuff that belongs together all over a mess of folder structures :) 

This is my way and I guess if you give it a shot you will be amazed on how organized all the stuff will be ready to use. The multiple file format support in the Library is actually a fantastic feature  

 

For the Database I use either ExifPro or TumbsPlus. Exif for instance has amazing options building a Catalog either Image or Html. TumbsPlus has great options for a creator when it comes to textures ....

@JustBeCause

This looks pretty similar to the smart content folder inside DazStudio, right?
I always found this feature great.
You choose your base figure and all the items, poses, textures and so forth are right in front of you to choose from.
I did not know that Poser can do that to, to an extend.
As far as I can see it from your example, the Character Folder contains materials and Poses of hands and body in addition to the figure, right?
Can you also have props stored there as well? This would mean, you don't have to bother with several other folders if you create new content.
Seem very practically and straight forward to me.

blackbonner posted at 10:02 AM Fri, 27 October 2023 - #4476896

@JustBeCause

This looks pretty similar to the smart content folder inside DazStudio, right?
I always found this feature great.
You choose your base figure and all the items, poses, textures and so forth are right in front of you to choose from.
I did not know that Poser can do that to, to an extend.
As far as I can see it from your example, the Character Folder contains materials and Poses of hands and body in addition to the figure, right?
Can you also have props stored there as well? This would mean, you don't have to bother with several other folders if you create new content.
Seem very practically and straight forward to me.

Yes that is correct, actually does not matter what poser file format is in the folder. So you can add all the Props, Cam, Poses, Materials, Lights into the same category. I actually do this already since P 12 I think or started about at that time with this Organisation method. It comes also useful for hair that normally have really large Material and pose collections, spread all over with Prop, Hair and Figure versions, keeping these together in one folder root either Figures or in the Hair section sure makes it more fun using these.

When it comes that you are saving changes or new setups for the Packages then they naturally will be saved again in the category of the format, these i save in a Working folder in a secondary library Runtime avoiding poser rescanning the whole runtime after every save, witch can be a real pain. Then just drop these custom saves if final into the main runtime to the figure it belongs to. this avoids having scraps of works all over your sorted runtime.

Well if I make content then naturally I keep the Standard poser method avoiding to confuse customers :) thought already a few times building it up that way and just add the Info into the read me, considering that it needs to be tested if this method is supported in DS when Importing the Poser runtime there.    

Comes also to it if you wish repacking such a structure will all that belongs to it into a new zip, you are way better of not missing anything when using a app like RunZip getting it back out of your runtime.

>>> Well if I make content then naturally I keep the Standard poser method avoiding to confuse customers

Renderosity requires standard Poser library folders both for free stuff and commercial products.

DeeceyArt posted at 11:29 AM Fri, 27 October 2023 - #4476899

>>> Well if I make content then naturally I keep the Standard poser method avoiding to confuse customers

Renderosity requires standard library folders both for free stuff and commercial products.

The idea actually is not for redistributing but rather for the end-user having a better order in the folder structure, a vendor will not reconstruct the folder structure for extensions he is making, but for the end user that wants a neat organized runtime then sure worth taking the time organizing it that way rather then spreading the stuff over all the poser sections.

comes to it if you preferer the drag and drop method with the explorer to load your stuff into the scene you just need to open one category for the theme. why make life hard if there is a easy way :)  

I just Tested if the folder structure with multiple poser formats also works when connecting to DS and it does. I am not a DS user but sure got my interest if it accepts it like Poser does, so there is no problem with it at all, is even more convenient that it is also supported by DS . For me the best way I ever could of sorted out my library. I might make some releases packed this way and see what my customers think about it, I guess they sure will like it that way :) 

I actually thought that more Poser users are aware of the multiple file support in the library, can't be that I'm the only one ! Anyway if you were not aware of this possibility, now you are :)