Reading Anton's thread about OBJ file fragmentation, I started thinking about the amount of time I spend tinkering around inside Poser's various files, with text editors, spreadsheets, and dedicated editors.

Here's a question for you to think about. How much has Poser's development (by the community) been aided by the easy accessibility of its text format files? Thinking of advances like MAT poses, morph injection and the like, how many of these would have happened if the files had been hard to crack? Someone would have done it sooner or later, but I don't think there would have been the same level of innovation without it. Even simple seeming stuff like remapping a mesh and pointing the CR2 to the new OBJ file is only simple because it's text.

It may seem inefficient; it IS inefficient; but we have a lot to be thankful for. The decision to use a scripting approach has enabled the tinkerers to add value in a way that you don't see in other 3D applications.

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Geep Hes the man. Always willing to put up with stupid questions, and hes got a sense of humor to boot.

Totally agree, EnglishBob. Almost any problem with a Poser file can be sorted out by looking through the file itself to see what it's trying to do, from loading an object to referencing a texture. This would be impossible if they were stored in an encoded proprietary format. That philosophy seems to have been carried through to Poser as a whole. For example, there are really only two types of file - those which load geometry and those which do something to the geometry. File extensions are pretty much arbitrary, as evidenced by the ability to put Pose files into Camera or Hand. And to encompass Furyofseraph's post, Geep (yep, he is the man) made a very good tutorial about the structure of OBJ files, showing that they were merely text files (albeit pretty damn complex ones) which can be edited in Wordpad or similar if required. No way on Earth would the amount of innovation seen in Poser have happened so soon if the files were in some arcane format.

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Excellent point. All the more notable when you consider that Poser began in the era of 144 KB floppies and 10 MB hard disks. Back then, tight binary files with minimum redundancy were the only way to get any serious work done. The original Poser programmers must have been nearly clairvoyant to stick with readable, redundant and "insecure" text files in that situation.

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Thanks for raising this point. The next time any one of us want to whine (and I am the FIRST to do so) about some peculiarity of the software, we should take a breath and read this post. We are fortunate that the code is accessible, can be tinkered with, and that we have a forum like Renderosity where collective wisdom can be shared!

Ockham: I'm not sure whether the text format was a conscious decision, or whether it just "sort of happened" that way. Given the way Poser began, I don't think the programmers could have foreseen the enthusiastic community meddling that happens today.

Pookah: not just collective wisdom, sadly; I though this might make a nice change from threads about the gallery TOS. ;)

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EnglishBob - so you are English? Damn, there goes my "Pulp Fiction" scenario. BTW, didn't you find it funny that Tropical Fruit flavours became immensely popular? I just bet there were thousands of marketing execs watching Reggie Perrin.

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English, but my name isn't Bob. Try an Unforgiven scenario. ;) Thousands of execs watching Reggie Perrin, and taking it seriously. Making notes, even... :)

"Try an Unforgiven scenario..."... A President... i mean, why NOT kill a President. End quote ;-)

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EnglishBob, I certainly understand your disenchantment with the ham-handed TOS, and have been directly affected by that idiocy. Still, I believe that the wisdom and knowledge I get from many people around here (like Geep, SamTherapy, karen1573, you and many others) outweighs the crap.

"sadly; I though this might make a nice change from threads about the gallery TOS. ;) " The TOS crap in the forum needs to be TOSSED!! It's so tiresome seeing it mentioned in new threads being started by folks who weren't around when it was revised, and even more bothersome seeing it mentioned in threads that have nothing to do with it at all!! Example: someone telling someone else in a completely unrelated thread: "As long as you stay within the TOS you're blah blah blah" That's not a direct quote BTW... But what the heck is that crap?? Is it trying to to cow-tow to the goose-steppers (not the site admins, I mean the over-zealous posters & forum members) or is it a ploy to show they're "UP" on things here in the community? It makes me sick!!! "I didn't get where I am today (in Poser & CGI) without... the wisdom & willingness to help & teach of the community and not it's sheep and "The Outright Sillyness" (TOS talk)... Sorry, G

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This forum is so cool because there are the great folks like the bushi, good Dr. Geep, Ockham, PhilC, shadownet, softriver, Stewer and too many to mention that, when faced with some odd problem will roll up their sleeves and hack about until they find a fix. I've learned a good deal of pretty neat stuff reading these pages and will return again and again, even to wade through the TOS arguments, to keep learning all of the many features of this program. EnglishBob, I should also like to thank you for your contributions. Best Wishes to All, Rance

MAT Poses, ERC, EasyPose, and probably a number of other innovations came about because of the text file format's accessability, and because clever tinkerers shared their discoveries and innovations. The coolest part is that people like Ockham, Dodger, PhilC, Anton, Ajax, Stewer etc. are so willing to help out. Those of us who haven't "peeked behind the curtain" as much as we should have owe such people collective thanks. On a more personal level, a simple tutorial by Syyd Raven encouraged me to think of postwork as an integral part of the 3D imagery process, and the renders and encouragement of Don Tatro and the gang at the Poser newsgroup offered confidence, inspiration, and guidance when I was a newbie. Without the sense of cameraderie and mutual support that our community exhibits at its best, I would have moved on to other creative pursuits some time ago.