Hi all, I am a Poser 5 user of about four months duration, with a shamefaced confession to make --- I've only just realised the power of runtime library management in P5, by being able to create as many custom libraries as you need. D'ohhhh.... Now that I know this, I'm wondering what is the best way to harness this power.....and if wondering if other P5 users that have successfully utilized this facility could share about ways they achieved this. Looking forward to hear from you. thanks, Andrew

I actually bought a harddisk to dedicate to 3D - and created runtime folders for Kids, Vickies, Mikes, House, Industry/Vehicles, Fantasy. Works great even on my lan when I am working from laptop - can access the same libraries as when I am on my desktop. Had a bit of problems with V3 so just upgraded my runtime for V3 base character/morphs in P5 runtime then the Vicky/Stephanie libraries ran just fine from the other harddisk. Why? I dont know.... Is nice to know where all items are; as like with clothes - I did subdirectories off of clothes directory for different characters (like female). Subdirectories off of Vicki for V3, V2, HiModel, etc.

It makes life so much easier having seperate runtimes for each figure or group of figures :) I even have a runtime set aside just for lights which is a good thing as there's over 1100 seperate light files so far.(thanks RDNA) ;)

I'm wondering what is the best way to harness this power.....and if wondering if other P5 users that have successfully utilized this facility could share about ways they achieved this. Well, how you organise your runtimes depends on how you work. Everyone thinks in different ways - find a method of organisation that will be efficient for you. I have nothing but the base human figures (including the Daz people) in my Poser 5 runtime. Everything else is in separate runtimes. Mine are organised by theme - Fantasy, SF, Historical, & Modern, with a few additional runtimes for things I use less frequently like animals and wyrmmaster's figures. That's what works for me. I load the base figure I want, then switch runtimes and usually don't need to switch again until I start a new image. A couple of things I use frequently I've installed in more than one runtime - easily changed if I run out of space. I can offer one tip: keep as little as possible in the main runtime. Poser loads faster that way. I've deleted most of the native P5 stuff, including the figures. I know the walk designer requires the P5 figures, but I never use it, so they're no loss. I love Poser 5. I'm still learning just how powerful this software can be.

there is one realy big problem with Poser 5 runtime managment. You cannot remove runtime files withot hacking into the xml files. While its not a difficult hack it ot far more complex a proceedur eit needs to be.

One thing I've done is after I install products to the appropriate runtime (I use the Downloads Runtime for basic products, have a V3 Runtime, and a Reorg Runtime where everything will eventually go), I move the textures to the P4 Runtime since I don't have enough room on the drive where P5 is installed. The reason I do this is that P5 has a problem with textures with the same name but in a different Runtime. For example, when loading the black.jpg texture for the MilCat, I had installed the MilCat to the downloads folder. Well, P5 looks in the P5 Runtime first and since it didn't find the required folder, it kept looking through the rest of the folders until it found a black.jpg even though it was for a temple or something. It never got to the Downloads Runtime. So, by putting all my textures in one Runtime, P5 will find the correct folder every time.