This has been bugging me for quite some time... As a Poser 4 user [ack!], and most likely not the only one left out there, I am rather curious as to why there are packages that state Poser 4 "OK" on them, and yet no RSRs have been provided? Now as a non-PPP user p'raps I've my facts incorrect, but t'is my understanding that PPP can read RSRs just fine, however P4 cannot read PNGs. It is exceptionally annoying in regards to MAT files as unless you create your own RSRs, save them w. a different names, then edit the names manually just so you can see which texture is which, you are left to work blindly. And maybe this is no big deal for those who have machines that can leap tall buildings in a single bound, wash the car and do your laundry too, but for anyone with a slower system, loading in texture after texture trying to find the right one can be quite frustrating. I am grateful to those creators & merchants who take the time to add RSRs if their packages were created in PPP. Kudos to you, and I respect the fact you've expended a little bit of extra time it takes to thoroughly flesh out your packages for ALL user types... But for the rest of you? Wassup with that? I'm far less likely to purchase packages these days that are "incomplete", and certainly it does not instill within me any desire to be a repeat customer either. It feels to me as if someone has basically said "I'm too tired to bother, so deal with it...", and it strikes me as not being too professional. Of course, I may be wholly misinformed as to the rhyme & reason & rationale of merchants who opt to not include RSRs... If there are any super good reasons for it, I sincerely wish to know, am willing to listen... Thanks! :))

Oh, and if this has already been complained, bitched, moaned and whigned about already, apologies for the repetition. I don't oft wander into these forums so most likely I missed it. So feel free to spank me if you must, but be forewarned - I might like it... [snort] ;)

No It hasn't been complained about nearly enough. I have to try to wind up P3DO and see if it will translate all of them-- thing is my Runtime is a bit too big for that proggie and it crashes a lot, so this PNG versus RSR is a big one for me, too. I don't much care if it happens on clothing as much, but when it is faces and lights that I can't see till I try them it's a big pain. After some purchases, it amounts to 30 minutes to an hour extra work to get these fixed. I always figured the merchants who did this just didn't care. Emily

You're entirely correct. Including the rsr's is the professional standard as far as I'm concerned. Regards, Brent

Yes I also agree, it is a must have. We include it in all our files, we are just beginning to include the png, but rsr are always first. Sharen

You know, I must be weird. I don't use ProPack to make stuff. Actually, I probably am weird. I read Bloodsong's painlessly easy conforming clothing tutorial and, once I 'got' it, I kinda ran with it. I make my CR2s by hacking together pieces of CR2s and adjusting the parametres (except JPs, which I do in Poser) in the file iteself. It makes more sense to me than PHIs, Heirarchy Editors, Setup rooms, and whatnot. I've even written some CR2s from scratch (looking at an existing printed-out one for reference, of course). I haven't yet gotten to the point of just writing OBJects from scratch in gvim though. Gimme a few weeks and lots of caffeine P^)

I include the pngs and rsrs.. To me, that's just standard because you have to realize not everyone has PP, so it's not fair to alienate. You made a really good point though, Kat :)

I include both, PNG & RSR's with my packs.. I also test the products myself on P4 & now P5 for compatibility

I agree Kat. I have ProPack but went through the Poser4 rsr issues too. What I WOULD like to see though is the rsr and pngs zipped in seperate files. I don't know if it is a lot of extra work to do but it would be nice :)

Well, I imagine that PPP users have their own separate frustrations as well with MATs that have been written for P4 that include a .bum reference but the necessary files had yet to be converted thus PPP users had no way TO create a .bum file. Granted, my understanding is that at that point it is just an annoying error message, but still... and I thought it was very cool whenst I saw that folks creating in P4 were taking that into consideration and writing separate MATs for the PPP users. 6/12, or 1/2 a dozen, hey? ;)

Cheers Kat, like you we believe you've gotta be compatable with all versions of the program, i think that more buyers should also stand up and say what the hell they want to see in packages, i mean geez, you are paying for it. It is a pain in the ass trying making PPP and P4 (now P5) products which will work smoothly but the extra work devoted to a package I think really pays off so I do. So I say, buyers, have your say of what you want so that we can make it. Now i've gotta go spank that snorting Kat grabs riding crop and heads off after her

The main thing I am interested in the packages is the skin textures, mat files for the textures and the morph/mor files. While I like the occasional makeup colors, nail colors and lights I sometimes wish those were either in a separate package or as a bonus download. That is just my personal preference I guess but I have found that a lot of the make up and nail colors I have will work on others as will the. Most of the time anymore I don't even load things like lights and such.

Maybe we should get CL to update Poser 4 so it needs only png and not rsr anymore. And use jpg for bump instead of requiring bum. Pro Pack and Poser 5 both only use png and Poser 4 users will be left behind more and more. But yes, of course in the meantime merchants should watch that, and buyers are completely in the right to complain if the product was marked poser 4 and then shows no library thumbnails.

Attached Link: http://www.poserpros.com/brokeringfaq/submissionFAQ.html

April, that would be delicious if P4 could be updated in such a fashion!! Currently, I've roughly 5 gigs tied up in my texture folder alone, and I'm willing to bet that at least a third of that is tied up in .bum files alone. I am constantly having to remove older items to make way for newer ones because of space issues [I've only 16.7 gigs for my HD space], and this past week has made me consider going through all my files to see what has required bumping and if it really enhances those products or not. If it doesn't really seem to & IF I should be able to ever find a few inches of breathing room, I might just edit all those MATs, strip out the .bum references and dump them. I'd need to do this even with the proposed update though, and in some cases I've already done some editing... [bother] but t'would be great to get an update of this nature so that I'd only all these older files to work around instead of an endless list of things... :) ** flashes a grin & runs really slow to ensure Sin can catch her **

I must have been fortunate. My first item that I uploaded, the testor told me to include both RSR and PNG, while propack could read the RSRs, Macs could not. So we need to include both and I do, and every merchant I know does also. We definitely want this type of feedback. And quite frankly it does suprises me. As a merchant, I know the quality of my work improves with each item. Lately, I have gone back to some of them and touched them up a bit. Just so everthing is up to par. Please feel free to keep posting these comments in this section. We do read them. And evidently some of them, haven't gotten the message. Just keep them constructive, like you did here!

One problem I have been having with pngs ( I posted a topic the other day) is they are not showing up in Poser. I received two good answers to fix them but the frustration was unbelieveable. I found rsrs worked better for me in Propack and just let the program convert them.

Yeah! I had noticed that! I often render my icons, rather than take the "standard" icon. Not all the details get in there and its hard to tell what you are getting. Usually, I let poser render at the correct size for the icon, and then save it as a png file in my build directory. Well the other day, I already had some test renderings and I was going to use a shortcut, that was to downsize them and save them as a png. However, when I loaded up poser with the new files, it did not recoginize the png files. Evidently there was a little bit difference between my paint program and the type poser uses. So I went back to the old way of having poser save the png, and then converting it to RSR files. This could be the trouble you are having, someone built there own png file and it wasn't exactly the same. The advantage of png files, they take up less room, and they are compatible with mac.

An easy way to convert PNGs to RSRs with no external RSR converter... Load up the item. Pan the camera around so you cannot see anything at all without translating anything except the camera. Turn off ground shadows and ground if they are on. Import the PNG as a background and let it resize to fit. Make sure the item is still out of view. Re-save the item to the library. Of course, this won't work with a camera setting...

Giana thanks for raising this_and raising awareness..I confess I only recently became aware that this was a problem...and certainly I think your complaint a perfectly reasonable one. I will certainly change my practice and try and include RSR's as well as png's with all future products. Could any kind soul point me at a png to rsr converter?

Yes, there is one that is free, it is in free stuff. I use it, It is P3dO Explorer by Seno Software at http://www.senosoft.com/

BTW it converts both to and from RSR / PNG and can look into many graphics files including P3

Hey BlueBeard thanks for that_just been to get it_looks v impressive and looks like it'll make the conversion a snip. I've only got a few things in my back catalogue that'll need sorting, but certainly all the new stuff will have the RSR's in.

Complaining, bitching, whining and moaning are encouraged! (particularly the moaning part)... Preach on, girl! [grabs a paddle and sneaks in behind Sin]

Spanki: paddle? hmmm, i presume you found one you liked, hey? ;) Noggin: will you be updating your beautiful Python pack? I have that on my wishlist, and I can guarantee you a sale if you are planning on updating... it looks just fantastic!! BlueBeard: Thank you for posting that link!!!! Woohoo!!! :))

Uhm... no comment ;).

You bet Giana, first on my list. I'll IM you when its ready :-)

woohoo!! thanks so much, Noggin!!!!

One thing that I found very helpful in catching things before sending them in, is to render all my thumbnails. This way, things that have a transparency look like what they are supposed too, and many time if there is a typo in the files, this gets discovered at this time.