Poser for beginners

[OFW]

No e-readers in my house can't survive without the actual book in my hands

I see though that you are just "avid" readers so there is still hope for you both.

I have been diagnosed as a "rabid" reader

LOL  I would lay odds that my "hard copy" library would rival most out there...Not a wall in our house that doesn't have at least 2 bookshelves on it (the tall ones) and most shelves are at least 2 deep :)

OK starting at the top of the questions

If I understand correctly you have the full program of Poser installed on an external drive?

No, Poser it's self is installed on my C drive, but during the installation it asks you for a folder location for the runtime.  So my question was, does this content go into the one on the C drive or the one it asked me for (which is on my external drive) *answered below*

The default runtime is the one within Poser itself. So when you installed V4 it will not allow you to install it anywhere else except the default runtime. Which when you open Poser that would be the folder at the very top of the library tab. Directly underneath it there is another "runtime" folder called "downloads".

Actually, if you don't choose the Poser option when you are installing the files, you can install them elsewhere...It's just that Poser doesn't like that...so Just an FYI for anyone else out there who might be reading this...when installing Daz Gen 4 characters, always remember to click the radio button for poser (or the drop down)

But I do have another question here...Often times there are more than one poser options available, none of which are poser 8 or poser 2010, so how do I know which one to choose, or does it matter?

I will not go into detail on the steps of installing unless asked, but the highlights are simple.
When you go to install it it asks for a destination, direct it to your newly created empty folder called Aiko 4 and let it run.

Yes, I do know how to install files LOL  even the one's that are not structured quite right (the runtime inside the runtime).  However, I find that with "free" content, often times there is not structure when I unzip something and thus I am not sure where to put each file type.  This bit gets really confusing to me.

As to P3DO you are correct, sorry it will only show a generic icon for a pz3 file. What the cool thing is that in the window to the left of it it gives you the complete run down and location of every item in that pz3 file. That has saved my bacon more then once because of not remembering just exactly what I used in a picture and now I want to use it in another but have no idea as to how to find it. So I open the file in P3DO and then look in the column until I find the name of the item and then I check the path for it and now I can find out where I have it hidden.

I can certainly see where that would be helpful

[Jherrith]

Really another person with a library I am only at about 1500 volumes now.

Well, didn't know that about Poser 8 so that is quite cool that you can install it's runtime on a different drive.

Haven't ran across an option for specific versions of Poser installs. I usually just see one that says "Poser all files" so I am assuming that if I had a newer version of Poser I would see these other options listed.

Nonetheless I would select the latest version it offers so if it is only offering a Poser 7 version it is still readable by your versions.

When it comes to open folder of material with only file extensions and no folders it do become tricky to say the least. I will start another thread with a listing of what type of file goes where which will enable one to build folders of your own for it and then move it to the correct locations to be able to use said content.

[DarkAngel]

I install all things into poser manually except the Mil4 people that are required to go into the main runtime folder located in the Poser fodler.

.cr2 files = character folder
.pz2 = pose folder
.cm2=camera folder
.fc2 = face folder
.hr2= hair folder
.hd2 = hand folder
.lt2 = light folder
.mc6 = materials folder
.pp2 = props
textures go into textures which generally consit of .jpg files

those are how they are named in a Mac but will still give the general idea. If the files are let loose into a folder (some used to be) then you put them into the respective home folder in your runtime with the .obj going into the geometries folder.

some .obj's can be imported thru poser itself but in the really older aips these were sometimes loose to be tossed into the geometries folder as is.

The hardest part for a newbie to remember is that DO NOT transfer the zips geometry folder totally into the runtime or it will overwrite the one in there and all previous stuff is lost. You must open each and every folder to compare files and if there is already a swam folder then keep opening until you see the contents or a folder that is not in your runtime already....then transfer the files

that is the one thing about pc that I grew to love...you can right-click the files and choose copy then go to the destination  folder and right-click to choose paste and there they are....on the mac it is actually drag/drop and hope you get it into the right foler or go fishing...lol

after I get the character into the poser runtime I get her all setup with the injections then put that injected copy into the external runtime.

at one time I was told that when the runtimes get huge to close poser -- when done creating --- with either an empty or a very small runtime so that it doesn't take too long to open next time.

[DarkAngel]

oh my I like that...thanks much

[Jherrith]

I have a post titled File structure which goes over this topic with a few other things I learned along the way.

The other reason for running external runtimes is that the only runtime Poser is loading when you open it is the default one or which ever one that was open the last time you used it.

So yes it is only loading the last open runtime first and just references or links to the others.