Hi, This is probably very basic... I've just bought the Uzilite shirt, pants and jacket from Daz. But when I try to load them, they start asking me for the relevant .bum files. But no bum files have been provided - they're all .jpg. It's been so long since I encountered this in a newly released product that I've totally forgotten what to do about it. Is there any fast and easy way to transform a lot of jpg files into bum files? I mean, is it just a matter of mass-renaming them or something? There are quite a few of them. Thanks.

If you're in vers 4, import it as a jpg and Poser will convert for you.

Yeah, I thought I remembered P4 doing that in the past. But now I have P4PP and P5. Since they can read jpgs, they don't convert. But my problem is, every time I try to load any of these props, poser goes through the whole routine of asking me to point it to the bum file, and when a jpg is the best I can manage, it sits and sulks for a long time. it's getting incredibly frustrating. I think I'm going to have to write to DAZ.

Poser4 Load clothing Go to materials Click-Load bum find folder with files sufix marked... bum.jpg files Highlight and Click-open Poser will ask if you want to convert to bum click yes and it will conert them to...bum.bum.

Open the .cr2, .pp2, and .pz2 files with a text editor. Search-and-replace all instances of ".bum" with ".jpg". Problem solved; warranty voided.

Get Correct reference, it's on the free page. You can reference the files to look for the jpg instead.

I seem to recall that you can also convert the jpg to bum by the following procedure. Convert the file to a bitmap (.bmp) file with photoshop or paint shop pro or similar. Then rename it with a .bum extension. Works like a charm for those of you that don't have Poser 4 hanging around.

Anthony Appleyard also has an Imagedit utility in Free Stuff that can do JPEG <--> BUM conversion.

The quick and dirty way: Open Poser. You don't even have to load a figure, just an empty document. Now go to the material editor by choosing from the top menu bar Render/Materials and choose the ground plane from the "Object" drop down menu in the editor (top left of the editor window). If you have no figure loaded, it will already be on the ground plane. In the bump map area (bottom left) click the "Load" button. Migrate to the folder the textures are in: Runtime/textures/AAV3FG. Choose the file "FGgdsequinsB.jpg". When Poser asks you if you want to convert it to a bum, choose yes. It will be created. Once you click that button that asks you to convert the file you've chosen to a .bum, it's created, it's there, whether you use it or decide not to in any texture. ANYTIME you click the "Yes" button on the pop up window with the triangle with the exclamation point in it, a .bum is created! When you are done converting the file(s), you can even cancel the material editor and they will still be in your textures folder in your AAV3FG folder. And that's all there is to it! :o) The next time you use the eyes mats, it will use the bums that you created beforehand and all will go like clockwork ;o). Laurie

The above is a excerpt from a readme of mine ;o) Laurie

With P4PPP and P5, you do not want a *.BUM format file anyway. It limits you to the P4 renderer in P5, besides being a larger file than you need. Text editing the CR2 to ask for a JPEG is your ticket.

I agree with Renegade...get CorrectReference and read the directions.... that thing zipped through my modest runtime and corrected all linds of problems :-)

damned fingers ... "linds" of course should have been "kinds" ... I really gotta get a spellchecker :?)

Of course, if you have Poser ProPack and Poser 5 you don't need to convert the jpg files. You just need to Correct the texture reference with CorrectReference. Gosh, there is no need to use a text editor when you have a program to do the work for you!

agreed! :-)

Thanks for all the useful suggestions, guys. I'd never even heard of Correctreference before, but it certainly sounds useful. But really, does DAZ ever test this stuff before selling it? The last few items I've bought there have had various problems. I mean, just checking that stuff will actually load into the program seems kinda basic. Oh well. Thanks again! I'm off to look for correctreference!

Go to Renderosity Free Stuff, and do a search for hogwarden (he's the creator of CorrectReference and PBooost). The history of bump maps is rather confusing. There was a time when DAZ distributed the ".bum" format of bump maps with their textures. My Vicky and Mike 2 textures came that way. Then suddenly, I bought Stephanie's textures, and they needed to be converted from jpg. I don't recall a readme file that gave that info. No one can document a set point in time where the bump map procedure changed. We were just automatically supposed to know "everyone does this." I just wish someone would invent an "addition" to the installation process that would automatically offer to convert the jpg's to bum format for you. Some installation procedures are capable of seeing which version of Poser you use. They do install the appropriate files for that version. They do ask you to click OK first.

Thanks, Peter. I got that correctreference thingie this afternoon, and it totally fixed the files (maybe someone should send a copy to DAZ!!!) I've got kinda used to getting bum files on older poser stuff, but this was Vickie 3 stuff in the DAZ 'latest' section, so I'm a bit miffed about it. Oh well, it's fixed now. Thanks again.

I have had this problem too, ran CorrectReference and still got the darn message asking for a *.bum file. Either I didnt use it correctly or I dont know. Im converting these files by way of p4...Its a pain, but then again, what isnt?

For Propack conversions jpg to .bum Open P4 go to materials Click-Load bum go to textures find product texture folder "IN PROPACK" find folder with files sufix marked... bum.jpg files Highlight and Click-open Poser will ask if you want to convert to bum click yes and it will conert them to...bum.bum. You can convert any jpgs in Propack to .bum from Poser4 without actually moving files

...or installing any items in Poser4 (you cam just use the default figure) to get to the materials window.

Actually, Im digging this now...It took me ages...but I found out something...if the reference in a mat referes to a jpg file as a bump map, p4 will use it without asking for a bum conversion first...the results arent preety though.

Just an update on my original post (which started all this). I got an email from Daz saying that the product files I downloaded were 'a mistake' and that they'll be fixed in a day or two, and that I'll be given a URL to download them again. I'm really getting a bit sick of this, as this is at least the third time it's happened (and some of us in the world still have to pay for internet time). I mean, if you're selling a Poser product, how HARD can it be to test that it actually loads into Poser???? Oh well. End of rant.

If you have ProPack or Poser 5 you do NOT want to convert the jpg bump maps to bum!!!! You want to get the original texture references corrected. I've spent hundreds of hours fixing the mistakes made by the original artists, and was really quite angry. So many artists have references to textures in folders on their own hard drives... folders that we don't get with the product, etc. This problem was encountered with free stuff in addition to stuff from DAZ, Renderosity and other commercial Poser sites. In my opinion, we should go back to the original artists or "online Poser stores," and demand that the products be fixed, or get a refund. Now let's watch the "fur fly!"

Now let's watch the "fur fly!" << No way. I'm outta here. My doctor says I should avoid stressful situations, or I might have to go back to... Anyway, my 'grump' is with DAZ, rather than Uzilite. A company with a rep like DAZ should be at least testing the most basic functionality of their products before rushing them into the market. FWIW, I've never had any problems with stuff I've bought on R'sity (maybe I'm just lucky), but it's beginning to get depressingly frequent with DAZ purchases. To be fair to them, they usually fix the stuff when you complain, and offer you a new download link, but it would be nice not to have to download so much stuff twice, just because they didn't check to see if it would actually load into Poser.

People...as everything this is just one of those things...welll...until recently I plainly was starting to hate poser...really...hang ups, freeze downs...Going into poser to do something began to be an ordeal...a lot of you must know the feeling...and the culprit was...TA DA...windows bloody 98...installed Xp...and poser flies...no matter what I throw at it... But dig this...if the bloody thing asks for a bum in p4, its because it was instructed to look for a bum, but if otherwise it was instructed to look for a jpg it will use the jpg...thus... The first image is in p4 with a jpg as a bump file. The second is the same bump file transformed in bum. See ya all