I did various searches on mat pose vs material, mat pose vs material collections pz2 vs mt6 and can't find an answer to my question. I know how to convert material collections to mat pose files and have done it several times. There are several threads on this and or some off site tuts that cover this also. The question comes down to if I have a product that came with maps, displacement maps, etc that is in in the poser material tab....what is the advantage or disadvantage of converting them to Mat pose files. I understand the ease of use of the mat pose files and grouping all choices for say a V4 outfit in one place and in one folder-directory structure say in the pose directory. Yet some texture sets for the same outfit either come as Mat Pose ot Material collections. Sometimes they come with both. There has to be a reason some people provide pz2's and others choose to provide mt6's. What is the key reason?

Users are used to pose files to apply MATs. At this date there is no reason whatsoever to use them. 

The only possible reason is for partial changes such as changing just one part of one material, such as turning a bump on or off, while allowing all other settigns to stay as they were. This is somehting a poser6 mc6 cannot do. But generally, nobody does this so it doesnt matter.

Lyrra

Also it is wrong to assume that everyone has changed to the newer versions of poser. 
Far more ppl then you may think still use P4pro (poser artist). Merchants are limiting there customer base if all they provide are material files, When in many cases the p4 setup and the p** setups are identical with just a folder name difference.

geo

true, many people still use p4. but these people dont ahve to worry about the difference between mt5, mc6 or any of that :)

for poser 5 and 6 users, MAT poses are more or less irrelevant these days. Its just a matter of choice.

somebody should check to see if PFA uses shader trees. it probly doesn't, as they're too complex for novice users IMVHO.

"PFA" you mean Poser Artist?
That's just Poser 4 renamed, so no, it still has all the lovely limitations of P4.

I'm pretty sure that Poser 5 can't load an mc6 file as well so that would be another reason. and of course studio, though frankly if you want to support studio its better just to save out a studio material preset.

Quote - "PFA" you mean Poser Artist?
That's just Poser 4 renamed, so no, it still has all the lovely limitations of P4.

PFA is Poser Figure Artist. it is newer than Poser Artist. If I recall correctly, it is a stripped down P6.

Material collections were introudced in P6, P5 cannot use them. If i were a merchant i would be far more concerned with P5 users than P4/PP/PA.

Thanks for the replies everybody. I just wanted to make sure after I converted some mc6's to pz2's it would effect my render speed or anything else if I started using them. Some times I get confused and go looking in my pose tab-directory for a texture for a certain outfit, only to discover that it is in the material tab-directory. Just trying to simplfy my runtimes is all.

Quote - Thanks for the replies everybody. I just wanted to make sure after I converted some mc6's to pz2's it would effect my render speed or anything else if I started using them. Some times I get confused and go looking in my pose tab-directory for a texture for a certain outfit, only to discover that it is in the material tab-directory. Just trying to simplfy my runtimes is all.

Personaly i find that putting the materials in the material room makes more sence to me than putting them in the pose library of the pose room.... maybe thats just me :-)

There are disadvantages to using PZ2's, such as you cannot apply a pz2 material to a prop without a figure in the scene. while this is not a circumstance many people find themeslves in, it is something you need to remeber when it does.

also in the material room if you try to apply a material collection to a figure it was not designed for it will pop up and warn you that the material zone it is trying to apply to does not exist in the model your applying it to. It will give you a chance to cancel. I dont know if pz2's do this.

I could be wrong, but I think Poser 5 doesn't use "all material" materials set like Poser 6, so you must do a material set for material in a model with more that one.