I have a 126M scene file from a picture I worked on in Poser Pro 2012; I loaded it into Poser Pro 2014, can't remember why, and saved it.  I just noticed that the 2014 version is only 17M in size - any ideas why? 

Quote - I have a 126M scene file from a picture I worked on in Poser Pro 2012; I loaded it into Poser Pro 2014, can't remember why, and saved it.  I just noticed that the 2014 version is only 17M in size - any ideas why? 

You have external binaries set to on in General Preferences

You're absolutely right!  Thanks for this.  Any idea why it might be an idea why it might be an idea to have them on?  Does it do anything other than reduce the file size by a factor of 10? 

There is also a .pmd file containing the morph data; how big is that?

Binary Morphs can cause issues with scenes containing DAZ generation 4 figures, so I keep it off.  If you want to save space, turn on file compression.

Quote - There is also a .pmd file containing the morph data; how big is that?

That's 184M - no wonder my hard drive is full!

I have been using external binaries since Poser 9 SR2 and never had a problem anymore. There were problems prior to P9 SR2 but they have been fixed.

Why use it?

Filesize is smaller (yes, even with the PMD). But the primary reason I use it is because file loading and especially file saving is a LOT faster. If I have a very large scene (800MB without external binaries) it now saves in 3-4 seconds instead of almost a minute if saved without external binaries. So I do save a lot more during a session

Since I started using it full time I have created hundreds of scenes with all the different DAZ figures and other 3rd party figures. So I think it is very reliable, but that is a decision you have to make yourself

some additional info:

Poser uses double precision binaries internally, the Poser file format is ascii text. So when using the external binaries, you save yourself the massive translation work and output stream of internal binaries to external ascii, and also the enormous blow up on file size when representing those 16-bit or so binaries to so-many ascii characters.

The Poser file itself can be saved in compressed format, which actually puts a zip-envelope around the original file. You can open the pzz if you wish with any zip-reading tool, and you'll find the poser file - without extention - in it. Just in case.

A third route - at least for Windows users - is to switch on compressed mode for folders (or the whole disk) where you save your scene files. Do not compress the swap-disk-space though, and do mind that some emergency-disk-repair tools can't handle the compressed mode.

have fun

Quote - Since I started using it full time I have created hundreds of scenes with all the different DAZ figures and other 3rd party figures. So I think it is very reliable, but that is a decision you have to make yourself

That's a good endorsement, Wim; perhaps I'll give it a go.  However, I have recently heard of at least one person having issues when saving scenes contaiing Genesis figures brought in via DSON; any experience with those?

Quote - > Quote - Since I started using it full time I have created hundreds of scenes with all the different DAZ figures and other 3rd party figures. So I think it is very reliable, but that is a decision you have to make yourself

 

That's a good endorsement, Wim; perhaps I'll give it a go.  However, I have recently heard of at least one person having issues when saving scenes contaiing Genesis figures brought in via DSON; any experience with those?

I have not encountered any problem with using genesis and dson. Not in scenes where I used them and not when I saved them to the library.

DSON creates a "normal" cr2 figure which Poser uses when it saves the cr2 or the scene, so I would not expect there to be a problem

I have not seen the thread mentioning a problem with genesis and PMD, so I cannot comment on that