I've been reading all the P6 threads and haven't seen this mentioned.

I have a scene created in P5. It contains:

One v3 with some morphs.
Hair and Clothes for her.
One scene prop.

The file size is 44.1 megs.

I made a copy of that file and opened the copy in P6. I changed the camera view and saved it. I made no other changes.

The pz3 for that file (the copy) is 6.3 megs and the pmd is 15.0 megs, for a combined total of 21.3 megs.

Again, both files contain the exact same objects yet the P6 version is less than half the size of the P5 version. Anyone know what accounts for the huge difference in file sizes?

I am not using compression.

And I sure ain't complaining!
Forgot to mention: The original P5 version takes 27 seconds to load in P5. The P6 copy takes 23 seconds to load in P6.

Message edited on: 04/05/2005 16:58

The PMD file is a binary compressed file. That accounts for the file size difference.

Ah! Thank you.

What is in the PMD file? Do we have to keep it for the PZ3 file to work?

"What is in the PMD file? Do we have to keep it for the PZ3 file to work?"

The way I understand it, that's where the morphs are stored. I don't know what would happen if you delete it. But I'm going to try it tomorrow.

Message edited on: 04/05/2005 22:15

The PMD file contains morph data (I guess it stands for Poser Morph Data?).

Let's use a CR2 as an example, and let's say that you have a character that has 25000 vertices (reference points that make up polygons). Let's also say that you create a full body morph that changes the position of half of those vertices, or 12500 of them. The changes in their positions are saved as morph data.

Some characters have all of this morph data included in their CR2 files, which makes them bigger. To work around that huge file size, DAZ characters use injection morphs that "infuse" the morphs into the characters, allowing you to use only what you want to use.

What the PMD file does is take all of that morph data and keep it separate from the character or the project file. It also compresses the morph data so that it takes up less space.

Now, after having explained that, the answer to whether or not you need it is ... yes, and no.

There is a setting in the Misc. tab of the General Preferences dialog to "Use external binary morph targets." If this option is checked, you save a PMD external morph data file every time you save a character to the library, or save a project or anything else that could contain morph data. If it creates a PMD file, you generally need it there to retain your morphs in the project or character.

If you leave that option UNCHECKED, things behave the way they used to ... morphs will be saved within the project or character file, so you won't get a PMD file, and therefore you won't need them.

The advantages of a PMD file are that they take up less space than if they were in their "uncompressed" state. It also allows you to distribute custom morphs without having to distribute the associated geometry, sort of like DAZ's INJ/REM method.

The disadvantage is that the PMD files aren't editable (they are in a compressed format), and they only work in Poser 6. So if you are developing characters that are supposed to be compatible with earlier versions of Poser, you'll probably want to keep the "Use external binary morph targets" option not checked.

Message edited on: 04/05/2005 22:37

Thanks for replying Jackson. Thanks Deecey for the detailed explanations. I think I will leave that uncheck as I am just starting to understand the Poser files, I don't want one more to confuse me. ;o)

One other advantage of the pmd system is that you have a heavily morphed character that you use a lot, you can save that character to the libraries. Then, when you use that character in the scene, the original PMD file is used and no new one is created, so the scene only uses a tiny fraction of the space, and also saves quicker as it doesn't need to create a new PMD file every time,

Yes, but Deecey said if you leave that option unchecked, Poser will not create a PMD file?

IF you uncheck the PMD option, then P6 works like P5 and the file sizes stay massive. To put it in context, if you load Vicki 3, inject all the morphs and then save that full version to the character library, then use the version from the character library in a scene, Poser will use the original PMD file stored in the library, and your scene with V3 with all morphs will only be 2 meg uncompressed (and will take about ten seconds to save). That saves about 40 meg per Vicki per scene (remember that if you add two V3s with morphs, each one is saved in full). Personally, I'm slowing coverting all of my old characters and clothes into PMDed versions - the amount of space I'll save is incredible.

It is a good POV. I will bookmark this page and when I'm done re-installing everything, I will have a look at this PMD stuff. Thanks.

I've just converted Vicki2 to the PMD system, and the saving there is just as good. V2 as normal: 21360k V2 in Poser 6: 699K, 7864k PMD file. That produces a space saving of 20650k for every V2 in a scene! I think I'll be using her quite a lot more now.