Hi. I was wondering how vendors or content creators set up there content for distrabution. Any steps or apps I need? I can create the content, its saving them in the right way so that all you do is drag to runtime and they work. Basically its v4 with a morph and textures. I want to start off simple. Just to understand the process.

There are plenty of tutorials on runtime structure, so I won't belabour that point. Your readme should describe what your product does, what files are needed to make it work, which figure (if any) it is for and in which application (including versions) it is meant to run. I'd include a safe email link, so users can contact you with questions.

Set your directory search in Poser to shallow, and try to load your content. Watch for texture calls. If you have Poser File Editor (or a pure text editor like Notpad++) load your pz2 files if you have any and do a search on the word "texture". Have a look at the directory path: you don't want users to need to get to your desktop because of a path like:

C:UsersFrodericDesktopMyCoolTexturesShirtTex.jpg

Was that what you were asking?

Roughly yes. I've never done the whole notepad thing before. Any links to tutorials would be nice.

:) it's the least fun bit of the job, but there are a couple of things that make life easier.

First of all every new product I make goes into a new runtime.  This makes it easy to see what is going on, and when you come to zip it up you can zip the whole runtime.

I also use Pedit, which is absolutely invaluable and well worth the investement.  You can do all sorts of things with it, but in the case of distributing content it has a few checking features which I run every time.  Also in the case of props, or anything with embedded geometry it will extract the geometry and re-reference it in your poser file.  Oh and in PPro2010 you can drag and drop files into it straight from your Library Palette.

I'm not related to Dimension3D or anything, so have no vested interest in pushing his products, but have a quick look through his stroe, he has a whole raft of great applications that can clean up and verify poser files :)

I know Notepad++ is free but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone not intimately familiar with Poser file formats. 

I'll look into Pedit. Hope it has tutorials with it, specifically for content distrabution, and how to  set up your stuff..

Quote - I'll look into Pedit. Hope it has tutorials with it, specifically for content distrabution, and how to  set up your stuff..

It is relatively straightforward, all the options I use for cleaning up a file are under the Repair menu :)

John

cool. Now to find some money:)

I only suggest Notepad++ as a budget-constrained option to like Poser File Editor and other fine tools available here in the marketplace. As with anything I work on, I always save to a copy and check to copy in Poser to make sure I haven't stuffed it up, which you can do in Poser File Editor as easily as Notepad++.

One thing you can do is open another (working) vendor's file to see how like texture file paths are written... typically:

:runtime:textures:VendorsFolderName:imageFile.jpg

Notepad or wordpad or other basic text editor.

I set up a runtime as C:runtimeetc so that when its zipped the paths begin at runtime , so will unzip directly to the poser libraries.

If you change the Poser setting from deep to none then all your paths MUST be correct or you get an error. Using DEEP will screw you up during testing.

I have a script that extracts filenames from poser files , and I run that to check that the file names are using relative paths.

There a utility in freestuff called I think file lister which will create a listing of all the files for your product if you start with a clean runtime.

Essentially all you need is a zip file utility like winzip, winrar or other that makes a zip that includes file paths.

"Essentially all you need is a zip file utility like winzip, winrar or other that makes a zip that includes file paths."

Make sure the top of your zipped directory structure is "runtime"... that runtime isn't in something else. Also, avoid the use of "!" in the texture folder name: it is profoundly annoying and a bit egocentric.

Cool. will search for that file lister app..thanks again guys.