how can I keep the library more organized?
tim ti tum tim tum
Posts: 19
First, a little rant. I'm installing everything I have into the DAZ3D Library, because I can't make heads or tails about the stuff DIM puts in there.
If it's a character, there is stuff, then if its a prop, it puts stuff someplace else, and then I found Renderosity.com, and those installers put stuff someplace too, and then there is the stuff folks put up for free and that's a runtime folder with a bunch of stuff...
And then I look for some prop in my poser library, and gees, there a folders all over the place for characters, authors, I can't find anything.
Ends of rant.
QUESTION:
Isn't there some strategy that helps keep stuff neatly organized? I hate installers because the insist I put things where it decides they should go. Grrrr. Maybe installing into a holding folder and then manually moving the files to the actual runtime? Surely I'm not the only one who feels this way?
Can anyone explain to me how the installed files work? I'm pretty familiar with Skyrim modding, so I'm not too afraid of figuring stuff out and messing with it, but I'm unfamiliar with Poser still. I really wish I better understood which files do what and why they have to be in certain places.
Any help appreciated. I'm very frustrated because looking for some boots for 10 minutes because I don't happen to remember the name of the author is really getting to me.
PS: I wonder when runtimedena.com will be online again... I feel silly posting Poser questions in a Daz3d forum.
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Comments
Welcome to the DAZ 3D Poser forum
DAZ 3D has a Poser forum because they know that a great many of their customers are still Poser Users. DAZ 3D does not only cater for DAZ Studio customers, contrary to rumour.
Poser runtimes, as set up by DAZ 3d installers are completely compliant with the normal Poser system
They do set up Vanity (ie creator name) folders for some, but then I have always found that vendors, from whichever site, have often done this.
So, as regards the runtime structure
Clothes,conforming clothes, are always under Libraries / Characters (figures).
Accessories, such as Boots can be under characters or under props, depending which format they have been set up as..
I have to admit that I have never allowed installers or zips to install the files as they want to and have always unzipped to a temp folder and moved it myself, because I have 12+ customised runtimes
Certain folders do need to be placed where the zip or installers places them, as they need to be referenced by the Working files. Geometry files and Texture files there fore cannot be changed. Character and Props folders you can change the name of, to make them easier for you to find
Thanks for your response chohole.
Let me repeat what I think you are saying so I can be sure I understand correctly:
Conforming clothes must be under Libraries/Characters - if I move those files elsewhere, things will break.
Many things I'd call props are actually showing under figures. I assume that's because they have a skeleton? Or what did you mean by "depending on which format they've been set up as"?
Setting up several runtimes is exactly what I have in mind, but I'm still worried that moving folders around inside them will break things. Can I move Libraries/Textures/vendor/character, can I move that up a level to Libraries/textures/character? I hate having to sift though folders to get to stuff...
You say textures and geometry can't be changed. What about morphs? One of the things that drives me nuts are a zillion morphs that are EMPTY in the dial label, presumably because they're used by a character, but I really wish I could sort these in a different way and decide that a certain set of morphs should be under "head" and not "body". For example all the morphs I never use, I wish I could put them inan "unused" folder and never have to see them (and scroll past them) again.
Again thanks a lot for your help.
I use an older version of Poser. I do know some of the rules were relaxed in the newer versions. I will see if I can find someone who uses a newer version to come help you rather than confuse you.
Hands off the Geometries and Textures folders!
You can create hundreds of external runtimes and you can sort inside the subfolders of Characters or Pose.
For Poser 8 and above the rules are relaxed -- you can have any type of content in the 10 libraries (runtime:libraries:character, camera, face, hair, light, materials, pose, props, hand, scene). However, most products will still have files in the library they used to be required to be in, and Poser still saves files as the type appropriate for the library they are being saved in.
Character (shows up as Figures in the Library pane) is for objects that have skeletons, including props with moving parts, conforming clothing and hair, etc. The Hair library is for "Prop" hair (usually short hair), that doesn't conform to the figure it's placed on, but just gets parented to the head. So articulated props are in Character, but props with a single bone are in Props.
The Pose library was originally intended for what we normally think of as poses, things that rotate various bones on a figure. However, over time it was used for two other things, files that morph the shape of the figure, and files that apply materials to an object. Morphs are still kept there; often materials are as well, even though there's been a Materials library since Poser 5.
DAZ 3D now uses this flexibility for Poser Companion Files -- for example, hair for Genesis/Genesis 2 will be in the hair library, whether it is conforming hair or prop hair. However, most products which work in earlier versions of Poser still use the old required locations.
I leave my runtime as is. I just unzip it and place the folder with the runtime inside it into a folder where I keep all my poser content and I attach it as an external runtime. If I buy some of ironman's stuff from renderosity that may have a scene and then she makes an add-on that is say poses I merge those two runtimes together. Then I just add them all to poser as external runtimes. That way the character is where it is supposed to be, and it's mat file will be in the pose folder or material folder, and the cameras and lights will be easy to find for that particular scene too.
I have 100s of external runtimes attached to poser. I have a script so I can easily add or delete them (advanced library manager from rdna by semidieu)
Love esther
I agree with external runtimes as an option for organizing content. Here's how I do it.
http://www.poserbydesign.com/news/index.php/starting-with-poser/using-external-runtimes/setting-up-extruntime
You can download the folder structure that I actually use for external runtime and customize it as you see fit.
First off, Im a Poser user, so this may not work for you. I've been using a program called P3DO for quite a while. It allows me to put any content anywhere I want. I still have runtimes for the geometries & textures folder, but the rest of the poser file structure would be gone except that I still occasionally use poser to save things.
It USED to work in DS, but you'll have to research that yourself. There is a free version that I find fills my needs perfectly.
It's always irked me that content creators could not come together - since they were all on the same forums, no less - and decide on a proper, sensible way to organize their content. I honestly tried years ago to design a sensible directory structure guideline that everyone could follow easily and would be consistent across generations, but I guess I should've shown up with a hammer to sell them on it. Now I'm spending more time looking through Figures>Character Base>Hair, then Materials>Character Base>Hair oops, not there, maybe Hair>Character>Base>Artist>Artist's Theme> oops not there either.
This is why I use external runtimes.