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I'm not likely to stop moving my files around, for a number of reasons. I need to find a way to cope with this file system. Here's a thought I haven't tried yet. First, save internally, to a dedicated folder. This collects all the resources in a single place. Then, save the same file internally. Now, all the relative references are to the folder contents, rather than to locations all over the drive. Or they should be.
The Install Manager (grrr), the non-standard content folder system, the relative file paths, all these things are working my last nerve. If I see one more "Can't find file" message, I will flip.
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This is a better dance sequence. Today he will speak.
You're making things too complicated. With Carrara, you don't need a runtime file structure. You can save all the files internally, but as you are discovering, it creates some huge files. There are some internal things that Carrara does that increases these file sizes so that even a low res .jpg is much larger. Carrara up-converts internally saved files to a lossless format (.tiff I think) and ups the bits to either 16 or 32 bit (can't remember which one). Geometry is saved in the scene file no matter the method it is saved in from what I have read.
Your idea about a dedicated folder is not a bad one. It is my preferred method of making a portable scene. The difference is how I do it. I gather or create my image maps and place them in a sub-folder of my dedicated folder. So for a figure, I would find all the image maps for that figure and move or copy them to that folder. I would open a scene, load a figure and build my shader for that figure from the maps I had moved to my dedicated folder. I would then save my scene with the Save Locally option enabled. It would take a bit of time initially, but I could also point my browser to that folder and load the figure from the browser. As long as the scene file and textures remain in the same folder structure, you shouldn't have to search for them again. The only caveat is if you have the browser point to that folder and then move it, you would have to point the browser at the folder in its new location, but that is only for one folder, not multiple files.
As an example, this scene file uses the above method. I organized it a bit more anally than I would have for my own use, but I wanted to keep it tidy as it was meant to be distributed. Plus the objects folder and the lights folder are meant to be added to the browser if the end user wishes to do so.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7370483/Fantasy-terrain1.7.zip
I just tried it. Having saved the file internally, Carrara now will not save it externally. It asks for filename.tif. It is trying to save a texture. The file it asks for does not exist. It won't take no for an answer. The program had to be closed. The manual did not explain.
Ever seen that happen?
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OK. I tricked it into obeying. I created a tiff with the name it was after and gave it to Carrara. It took it, then overwrote it with a bitmap image. It then saved every bitmap image used in the file, asking for confirmation for each one [snore]. All's well that ends well. The file per se is now almost half its previous size. Interesting.
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The second time I saved, it saved all the bitmap files a second time with new names. The third time ditto. It's in a loop now. It's saving files that aren't used, too. Saving locally results in the same large file size as saving internally. Do you know how to stop this behavior?
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I loaded a clean M4 in a new car file, made a few edits, and saved it. This time there was no funny business. Saving externally cut the file size dramatically, and this time, Carrara did not ask to save any texture files. Saving locally had the same result. What you went through to create a portable file folder, evilproducer, was a fate worse than death, may I never find it necessary.
I conclude there is no easy way to manage your referenced files, except to never, never move or delete them. Since you may not know which files are referenced in which other files, the prudent move is to never ever move or delete anything. If I had known this way back, I might have used a dedicated hard drive just for programs that use the Poser file format. Oh well.
I've pretty much given up on using files I created in Poser, too. The biggest problems I've had so far involved figures modified in Poser.
I learn something new every day.
The Fantasy terrain wasn't that bad. When I texture a figure and tweak the shaders for it, I just save the multi-domain shader to my shader browser. It's very easy. Now I'm going to have to test a couple things to see if I can get your issues. Maybe tomorrow I can get some answers.
In your new thread, I mention P3DO Explorer. If you're going to move around things that belong in a runtime environment, that's what you need, and the free version does exactly what you need it to do in that regard - and much more. I gave up moving around installed content from within runtimes after breaking but a small few items - then I never did it again. The exception (for me, that is) are pose files within the Pose group. I say pose files, because the MAT and INJ files from the pose group have to either stay where they were when installed, or be moved by something like P3DO Explorer, unless you know how to change the stuff around in the files, themselves. I can do that, but it can be a nightmarish amount of extra time.
Last word (for now) on that note, to help myself solve such difficulties, I decided to become redundant for certain things. Meaning that, if I often wish to find the same file in several locations, I'll install it to those, several locations. After about the fourth time I completely remade my Runtime collection order, I never had to do it again - and I have several backups of last years up-to-date runtimes always, on several hard drives that I don't use anymore for anything else.
Changing the actual location of your runtime libraries can also cause programs like Carrara to make you search for portions of assets as you load in previous saves. In this case, I Carrara file that uses items from a runtime folder. This is where you need to form the good practice of always having a full backup of your runtime structure. That way when you get tired of finding the same texture maps for the same things over and over, you can put them back where they were and just be done with it.
Carrara can easily remap where you're runtimes are - that's not so much the issue. But whenever you do that, your best option for any of that content is to load it fresh in from the Content Tab, rather that using what was likely a nice Carrara file with fully optimized textures, accent lights, and favorite render settings, etc.,
For Carrara content, you may move the actual Carrara (.car) files anywhere you want. As long as you can navigate to them, Carrara doesn't care where they are. But if they contain other files from somewhere else, like a runtime, it is important that that stuff stay in the same location on your computer. Yes, there are ways around it, but not without a pile of time. Something I keep running out of.
So after I optimized my Rosie Character for use in my Carrara projects, which happens to be the only place I work with such things, I save it leaving all of it's assets in their local locations. Otherwise I'd end up with far too heavy of a hard drive. Saving internally stores all of the textures and such within the CAR file. This is great for items that are not copyrighted that you want to share. But otherwise, to go from one computer to another, it's best to simply use identical structures and placements each each computer - so when the car files looks... it finds.
Dartanbeck, at first glance, I would say the author of P3DO has walked in my shoes. I'll be road testing this utility very shortly - as in, today.
I've been trying to get Carrara, DS and Poser Runtimes to all read from the same page, without documentation of what a Runtime wants or needs. The Install Manager :vampire: hasn't helped any. I've had to uninstall and reinstall everything a time or two, learning what works best by trial and error. Right now I'm recovering from the last move. If P3DO does what it says it can do, it will speed my recovery, and make future install/reinstall adventures unnecessary. Hallelujah!
That's what I like about this forum. Your help, as usual, is appreciated.