Greets - I'm to the point now where I cannot find anything easily. -And I'm sure its only going to get worse. With P5, is it possible to rearrange the various files in the various runtime folders? Rename folders, move textures/props/etc etc? Is there a tutorial exlaining all this that I may have missed somewhere? Thanks in advance! -Todd

sure....you can rearange your files, folders, etc. but its not the actual moving you have to worry about...its your CR2 files, etc. that would have to be changed too......like for example if you you have a P4 Character that uses the P4NW OBJ, then the CR2 will look for the OBJ file in the path embedded in the CR2 file....if you moved the OBJ file from the default path listed in the CR2 then you wont be able to load your character unless you point to the OBJ manually......if you wanted to move your files to a different place on your HD then you would have to go into each Poser file (usually the CR2 file) and edit the path so it can point Poser to the correct new location of your files (texture, OBJ, etc.).....and if you have lots of characters etc. then that could be a nightmare cause youd have to change each one if you move all of em..... this applies to pretty much all Poser files.....

Thats what I thought - embedded paths. I was IM'd that I should look at Pboost - and it looks like just the thing. Thanks Biggert!

Why would anybody mess with the locations of the objs unless they need to? (for example, that information is embedded inside the cr2 in many Japanese models). For finding stuff inside your libraries, you don't even see the objs. That isn't what is clogging up your system. You can easily move your characters and props and such around even in Poser 4 as long as you keep account of the extension so that it matches the name of the folder it is in (cr2s in the Character folder and fc2s in the Faces folder, etc.) This is why MAT poses can go under Cameras and Lights and Hands... the maker puts the right extension on them and then hides the little suckers. (And yes, I was disconcerted to find a MAT pose folder in my Cameras because I do keep a tidy Runtime with minimal poses.) If the hair is under props or under hair in the Libraries it doesn't matter... it will go looking for the obj in the Geometries folder... which is a whole separate arrangement. Scrolling is a pain, so I don't allow any folder to have more than 100 items (this allows for the rsrs or pngs). I doubt if you need PBoooost. You may want to get Correct Reference, however, because it will find and fix wrong paths. Carolly

As a followup, no reorganization and no product is going to help you untangle the mess unless you get organized yourself. Look over your collection of files and get a rough feeling for the sort of stuff you've amassed and then decide how to divide it into managable bites. It doesn't matter whether you organize by maker, by type of item, or by the figure it is for... for example PhilC's caftan for V3 could be filed under "clothing", under "stuff4V3", or under "PhilC"... choose a route and try to stick with it. Say that you decide to file all your props by type: weapon, plant, furniture, architecture and a year later realize that you've collected everything by Cooler: buildings, props, widgets, whathaveyou, and you also have wide-ranging stuff by Trekkiegrrrl and Little Dragon and Maclean and it occurs to you that if you wanted to find the morphing sheet that you'd look for the maker first and not under furniture. Or maybe you'll realize that you have a lot of stuff which falls into ethnic groupings: Japanese, Egyptian, Greco-Roman, and for scene-building determine that it would be easier to keep them grouped by area rather than clothes, props, rooms. You can always go back and rearrange. I start the organization while downloading. I attach the maker's name or the website at that time, too. (I'm soooo tired of props overwriting each other because they are all balled "old_book" or "candle01"... with the maker's name I have a better chance of keeping them straight.) I download into one of several folders: animal, character, lights, miscstuff, hair, territory, and then redivide the zips into further subcategories on my Mac. "Animals" has subfolders for horses, birds, cats, mechanimals, dinos... etc. Stuff gets unzipped and installed when I need it. I don't need a 40 gig Runtime with its bragging rights; I need to find and use things. So think about what you have or intend to purchase, and then think about the images you want to make. Decide how to arrange the first to most easily accomplish the second. HTH, Carolly

quoting hauksdottir, "I start the organization while downloading", that's the way to go. After an unfortunate hard drive failure I figured that was the best time to start. I examine everthing I download and edit it accordingly to keep my folders orginized so I can find things, track who made them, avoid duplicate file names, etc. **Including 3rd party products downloaded from DAZ! You would be surprised at how many errors you can catch once you learn to read the files too (and how much you can learn about Poser's files as well) It was a pain for the first few months but it's all down hill now. It takes far less time if you 'do-as-you-go' then try to untangle the mess when you want it later....IMO An ounce of prevention...

Oh, and keep in mind that it is sensless to condem the makers for the way they do things. With the vast expanse of Poser users there is just No Way that there will ever be 'One Way' that everyone can adapt, we all have different intrests and different points of views of just what "organized" means. You just have to find a method that suits 'your' needs and go with it.

I have P5, if I wanted to rearange all my Vicky files like Vicky textures, Vicky clothes, would I have to find all the different parts of each item and have a folder in each of the runtime folders with the V tex etc? The way I've been thinking of it is that I'd have to do all of this from the beginning when I first import items. Thanks 8) Catlin

Carolly - Thanks for your comments! So, let me get this straight - I can move anything except obj files around as I please, as long as I am mindful of the entension/folder relation. And I can change the names of the files as well?

Right. Before you install something, make sure that you have a place for it, and create that folder if you don't already have it. Please note that I use MacInstaller: it reads all of the extensions in a folder (let's say it is a figure with hair and clothes and props) and pops up a dialogue box where I type exactly (or scroll) in which library folder under hair, figure, props... I want the appropriate files. Before installing my first plants, I checked to see if they were props or figures, and made a folder called "plants", THEN when I installed, there was a place waiting for them. (MacInstaller also helps with some of those files which are encoded, by confirming that you have the original.) Sometimes I go in and rearrange. For example, suppose you only have 3 building figures and they all can go in one folder. Suppose it is 2 years later and you've collected every castle out there or all of Ironhart's cottages and your building folder is so full of other stuff that you can't read the names anymore. In the Finder (which I think is the equivalent of Explore), I can go into the Runtime directory, look under figures and make another folder called "castles" and one called "cottages", renaming the main folder "other buildings". Drag the castles and cottages over to their new homes (get the rsrs/pngs, too!). The next time I run Poser, and look in the Library, the new folders appear and all their contents are waiting to be used. Findable again. There are some MAT files which get a bit snitty about where the Textures are so you might need to tell Poser to look in a new place if you move them (and if you use MATs), but the main Library has been quite editable. Occasionally companies will reorganize, too. DAZ used to be Zygote. Why have a "Zygote Animals" and a "DAZ Animals" folder? Their installer will place some items under "DAZ Character" and some under "DAZ Characters". Vicki got scattered all over the place. I made a Vicki file and pulled all of her variants into one folder. There is some prioritizing. Under characters, I have folders for fairies and merfolk as well as each of the main models. Even if Vicki or Natalia or Posette is the main model, being a mermaid is more important than being based upon whatever mesh. This is where you look at your own priorities: Is being a robot more important? Or is being a Star Wars figure more important? I keep Oola and R2D2 in different folders, somebody who did a lot of space scenes might want everything from that genre together. One other thing... I tend to remember where I put something, and so it is naturally easier to find later. It is much harder to remember where somebody else put something. Oh, when renaming something upon download... mention what it is for. Otherwise you'll have a file called laurie122345 or ps_1234 and have no clue. Since hair and textures and space ships get named with people's names, how are you to know 3 years later that "Cynthia" is a hair model? "Cynthia-hair4V2-artistname.zip" tells you who made it and what it is without having to unzip the puppy and track down a readme... which might not mention who it fits even if you do manage to determine that it is hair. Name and sort when you download and the asset flow will be a lot easier to manage. Carolly

I think I may just reinstall again and start from scratch. When I first got Poser I didn't realise how bad things could get when trying to find something. In the beginning I started using PInstaller but didn't understand the part about creating subfolders so everything got stored wherever. Now I do much of the installing by hand 'cos I've learned a bit about where everything is supposed to be and my later downloads are much better organised but Daz still confuses me 'cos not everything I buy from them goes to a Daz folder. Thanks for your words of wisdom Carolly, I don't know where I'd be at all if not for the help I've received in this forum. 8) Catlin

Seperate Runtimes and nested folders... what a timesaver. P5 Only of course, but I now have a mike runtime, a vicky runtime, etc, etc. I think I have 5 or 6 total. Jhoagland has a tool that helped me reorganize (still not quite done), but all my new stuff just gets installed in the correct runtime, and then I rearrange folders to my heart's content. Correct Ref (by the makers of PBoost) is also tremendous. Helps to make sure you have all your textures and they are in the right place. He said he was going to make a new version that would scan ALL references (obj, texture, etc) and locate the correct paths for them, but i have not seen it nor heard of development.

I've found that it also help tremendously to install things to a temporary folder before moving it to the Poser runtime. This way you can run Correct Reference without worry that it will apply the wrong texture file, organize the folders into the setup that you prefer and then just move it over once all the "setup" work is done. As I don't use P5 I've found PBooost to be invaluable. Kate