I need to find a way to make the Poser libraries work better. Stuff I download disappears and stuff that shows up still makes me go find it again when I try to use it. I don't like materials listed by author (that tells me nothing), I would like to find things by categories (clothing, armor, hair, stone, metal, etc).

I have a friend who is a computer programmer and even he couldn't make sense of it. Any ideas? Any feedback on PzDB?

PC; Poser 8. Hope to upgrade to 9 soon...

I looked at PzDB briefly a couple of weeks ago. Gave up on it because it's PC only and I'm on Mac (tried it in a virtual machine). There is a demo of version 1.1 here:

http://www.sharecg.com/v/36165/browse/11/Poser/PzDB1.1-30-Day-Trial

Not the latest but may give you a taste of it's capabilities. I ended up going with Shaderworks Library Manager (on sale today at RDNA) but the latest version is 9/2012 only. Don't know if you could finagle an earlier version.

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I have worked with PzDB for several years now. It works fine and can quickly find almost anything and has enough filtering possiblities to narrow down your selection. You then drag and drop it into Poser

You can use the default keywording or add your own if you feel the need to do so. And yes, it is PC only, but it works with P7 upwards (I believe)

About categorization: PzDB does not look into your materials, so if it is not named properly, it will still not be found - unless you add the proper keyword to it (such as the type/name of the material).

 

I believe I responded to a similar complaint you posted elsewhere and I will reiterate that respnse here.

You have provided no information about which Operating System you are using nor the installation path you used for Poser.  Disappearing content in the Library can be attributed to UAC under Vista, Win7, and Win8, which means that any application installed into Program Files folder is under security protecting, simply no access, no read/write.  If this is the case, then you need to reinstall Poser properly. 

Non appearing content can also be attributed to the package not correctly assembled for distribution.  Those compressed files need to be checked before installed.

Poser's Library is flexible enough that you can create folders and move content within the application if you put the effort into it.  I have customized my own Library by categorizing and converting MATPose files to Material files with Poser and scripts.  You just need to try it; if it's not to your liking then try another 3rd party utility.

I am still sitting on poser 12 trying to decide how to install it, and this is the crux of my indecision. I have Poser 9 and the libraries just killed me. Should I be using a library manager as soon as I install Poser 12, or after installation? Besides that, I have lots of poser 9 content that I arranged according to a model I found here, which is on my C drive in the root directory and I just called it Poser Content.

So.. no improvements to look forward to. Thanks for the warning, Joey301.

hborre, I'm running Poser 8 with Win7. Last night I uninstalled the program and reinstalled it. I loaded it in the "Poser directory" (3rd option, I think). It all looks the same though. [Local Disk (C:) > Program Files(x86) > Smith Micro > Poser 8]. I expected the libraries to appear different (original) but they don't. There's probably something there to prevent the user from losing downloads.

I found a little info about managing libraries in Practical Poser 6. I'll work with that next. Any additional info you have is appreciated. This stuff sounds so simple when others talk about it. If programming expertise is required to pull this off I'm in trouble.

Thanks everybody.