File Types and Where To Put Them

DannisWrites

Okay, I'm a longtime Poser user and trying to learn DAZ. I've been working with some very old Poser World files and going by the little .txt help files to put some content that isn't in a Runtime into a Runtime so it will work. Here's what I know and questions about what I don't know. Anyone, feel free to jump in if I misunderstood this stuff at any point!

1. Will old Poser 4 stuff work in DAZ?

2. How many runtimes [actual directory folders for vendors and artists] can DAZ handle?

3. How do I point DAZ to my actual directory folders? Content Manager? Categories?

4. I moved away from storing my 3rd party items by vendor and now store them by artist, because many artists sell on multiple sites. Will this work, or do I need to reinstall by vendor? What if I have more than ten vendors?

Here's what I learned so far:

In Poser

From https://support.smithmicro.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1982171-poser-file-types

.obj or .obz     Goes into the Geometries folder. .obz is compressed. The creator of the file type will specify a particular folder, and it has to go in there or it won't load. The location is coded into the corresponding .pz3 file [or .pp2, cr2, etc].

Some .obj files have a corresponding .mtl or Material file. It goes with the .obj in the same folder.

If you want to change the shape of the object or add a morph manually, you use a program like Hexagon or Blender, if it's more than changing it within Poser or DAZ. If you want to try this, make a copy of whatever you want to modify. Don't ever, ever use your original file that you bought or downloaded! Play with primitives [simple cubes, pyramids, cylinders, etc that you can load into Hexagon] first and watch tutorials. Don't risk making your original file unuseable. But check the licensing of your model first if you want to sell it. More about licensing in another post.

.cr2                 A Poser Character file. Goes in Libraries/Character. You may add directories under Character for People, Hair, Textures, etc.

.hr2                A Poser Hair file. Goes in Libraries/Hair or Libraries/Character/Hair if you're keeping it there.

.pp2               A Poser Prop file. Goes in Libraries/Props and shows where the corresponding geometry file is in Geometries. It matters where the .obj file goes. If you want to change where the .obj file goes in Geometries, you have to edit the file path in the .pp2 or it won't find the .obj file that gives it its shape.

.pz2               A Poser Pose file. Goes in Libraries/Poses

.mc5 and .mc6   Poser materials files. Old models will have these, new models will use Shaders. Goes in Runtime/Materials

MAT poses, a file with a name that has MAT in it and the .pz2 extension. MC files are used in the Material Room, MAT poses are more limited and used in the Pose Room.

.lt2                Poser light files go in Libraries/Light

.cm2             Poser camera sets, in Libraries/Camera

.fc2               Poser face poses, or expressions go in Libraries/Face

.hd2              Poser hand poses go in Libraries/Hand

.pz3              Poser scene file [not to be confused with .pz2, which is a Pose file] goes in Libraries/Scene

.rsr or .png files might be with any of these file types, and these are the thumbnails that show you the product.

.pmd            Poser Morph Data files, might be with the other file types and should be kept with them. Morphs can be in the Libraries/Morphs folder, too, or might have an accompanying .obj file in the Geometries folder.

Confused yet? Bottom line, if you have a ReadMe file, that little text file, you will know where the files need to be. Some scene files have .cr2 and need to be in Characters. Some scenes are in the Props folder.

1. You can rearrange files in your Characters folder. Other folders, maybe not.

2. You can only have 10 content directories in DAZ. This is where I get very confused. I would like very much for someone who knows DAZ to post! Is it, folders on your drive? Is it, Content Manager paths?

3. I've found a lot of 3rd party content that didn't work stuffed in the Content directory. Do you always need to clean out the Content folder and put the stuff in other folders? I know not to touch Data and not to move People and other folders into Runtime. What's in the top of the vendor folder is for DAZ and what's in the Runtime is for Poser.

If you try to reorganize these files in Poser, you will mess up your files. I've done it and had to reinstall. Having worked in a library and loved it, I hate the mess, but if it works, don't fix it. The problem comes when you have these old models and maybe the artist was learning to package stuff so it works.

Enter Third Party packages, the ones that your DAZDIM doesn't install.

A lot of these come with both DAZ and Poser formats in the same package. So you'll have any one of these situations:

1. Just the .obj, no readme, no nothing. This is often the case with ShareCG sharecg.com, and the licensing info is on the page you download from.

2. A list of files, no folders.

3. A Libraries folder.

4. A Runtime folder, with or without both Libraries and Geometries.

5. A folder which names the object but not the artist.

6. A folder within the Libraries [Pose, Light, Character, etc] containing the files

7. Folders Content, People, [or Materials, etc] with a subdirectory Runtime.

8. Folders Data, People, etc with a Runtime.

9. Folder My Library and folders within it.

10. Just a Content folder.

So, it pays to unzip the folder in your Downloads folder and use a utility that gives you a Folder Name the same as the file you downloaded.

Examples:

I downloaded a .zip file from ShareCG called Man.zip. I unzipped it into my D:\Downloads\ShareCG directory and got:

ShareCG/Man

ShareCG/Man/My Library

ShareCG/Man/My Library/Data

ShareCG/Man/My Library/Content

ShareCG/Man/My Library/Man

ShareCG/Man/My Library/Man/Libraries

ShareCG/Man/My Library/Man/Libraries/Character

In the /Character folder is one file named Man.cr2

In the /Content folder is /Data and /People

• The problem with this archive is, there is no artist name. So, I fix it. I look in the ReadMe and the artist's name is NoCanDo.
• I make my own /Runtime folder and under Libraries, I put Characters/NoCanDo/Man, so at least in Characters, I can see who did the Man.cr2, but I can't fix the other directories without changing each file unless I want to edit them all, and I don't have the time for that. 

I go to my /ShareCG folder and copy the contents of /Content to it

• Then I copy the /Data directory to ShareCG in case there is something diff in there. If it finds duplicate files and they are the same, I tell it to Skip Files. If it finds duplicate files and they are more recent, I overwrite them.
• I repeat for /People
• I copy my made /Runtime file in.
• Then I check all the directories in the Zip for loose files, files that are not in a folder. I find Man.txt and copy it to the /Man folder. I delete all the now-empty directories and put the /Man folder in my /ReadMe's folder in ShareCG.
• Now I can trace the permissions later in my /ReadMe's file.

Example 2

        I download a file from a site new to me called mynewsite.com and download the Cute File [note this is totally made up!]

        I get CuteFile.zip, which has

My Library/cute.obj

       Obviously, I can't just use an .obj in Poser or DAZ...or can I? Sure, I can! I can simply import it. Both softwares can import many file formats.

       On the page I downloaded it from, the model is public domain, so I can modify and sell it, or do whatever I please with it. So, I right-click the page and choose Print. When the print dialog comes up, I choose Print To File. It offers to save Print.pdf but I want to know what I downloaded, so I change the name to Cute File.pdf and save it to my Downloads/MyNewSite folder that I just created off my download folder. If you're like me and download a LOT of freebies looking for something, anything similar to what I need so I won't have to create it, I like to make a folder for each vendor site and download it that way. Then I save all the original .zip or .7z or whatever archive files in my 3D/Bkp/ folder under the vendor name. It makes reinstalls easy. I keep my .pdf with the file so I know exactly what permissions I have since I do commercial book covers.

       But, what do you do with .obj files? You can't just stick them in your Geometries file because there's no file to point to them. I suggest that, under your MyNewSite file [substitute name of vendor like Renderosity, ShareCG, etc] make a directory for Object or what-have-you and keep the .pdf or readme.txt with it. Under Object make a directory for Cute File and keep all files you got with it together. Or, to avoid Runtime clutter, make a new directory for your objects, textures, brushes and things you use in other programs and make a folder for each vendor. It's a little work to set up, but you can use these files in your DAZ and Poser! Or maybe, store your prop files in Hexagon in your content folders and have a separate directory for all the 2D stuff like brushes for GIMP or Photoshop or Clip Studio, textures, etc. outside of your DAZ and Poser content.

      There are many sites for free textures. These can be .jpg, .png, .tiff, a lot of diff picture formats. You can load a texture in Poser and DAZ in several places. So, if you don't want to make a shader, or you want a bump map to use in your shader, you can load up a texture file. The usual caveat is that you can't use a texture so somebody could make a screenshot of your final render and use part of it as a texture file, so you want to avoid large areas with that texture. Again, texture sites will spell out the licensing.

       So, you could keep .obj, .fbx [game-ready files], graphics files like .jpg etc, even your photographs for backgrounds. I take lots of pictures of grass, parking areas, gravel, asphalt, etc for this use. Be sure you read up on what permissions you need to use photos of famous buildings, etc. Sometimes you have to contact the property owner for a release. If you go to a site like shutterstock.com, they have articles on legal stuff for photographers. It's worth reading to save yourself a lot of legal hassles! If you are selling the output of your work, you have to read every readme.txt and read up on what you can and can't photograph for commercial use. If it's from a movie, cartoon series, book [for distinctive characters and alien races, etc], or comic strip, you can't sell the work, generally. Don't assume if it's ok to use a 2D picture for a screensaver that you can use it as a background.

       Don't think they don't come after small outfits. I used to frequent a small troupe of talented actors in a major city. They did a hilarious play with references to a lot of science fiction movies. They happened to have some Star Trek references. I didn't think the set art or costumes were very similar to Paramount at all! But Paramount sued them. This group of actors had gone in together to buy an old theatre and this production finally put them in the black, until Paramount. They were not rich or making incredible amounts of money. This lawsuit nearly put them out of business! All us loyal customers were mad, but that didn't help them at all. Don't risk it. Check and follow any and all licensing! It is a lot easier to avoid trouble than to find it and try to get out of it. There's a lot of fan art out there and a lot of these folks don't care about the legal stuff, so they don't warn you that this model is based off a movie. Do a Google image search on the item. Beware of pirated stuff, too.

       So, now you know what I know, and I hope I haven't confused anybody! I just figured I'd share some of what I've found out since 2009, and I'm eager to bridge this with what I don't know. Where to put files is a recurring subject for all us new to DAZ folks, and I need to learn a lot more. I also need to know if my understanding of where to put Poser files is wrong anywhere because I plan to continue using it as well. I'm constantly trying to figure out the best ways to keep my files so I can find them in Poser, in Vue, in DAZ now, and in GIMP and Blender! Any ideas welcome!

       Oh, I am working on a PC, a Microsoft Surface [loving it!] with x64 architecture [which means it's more efficient than an x32], an i7 Intel processor with 2 cores and 4 processors [it's got horsepower], 2.5 gigahertz speed [moderately fast], 16 gigabytes of RAM [lots of memory for number-crunching during renders], my graphics card is an NVIDEA GeForce GPU with 1 gigabyte of RAM on it [I would prefer more RAM on the card itself, but it has a pretty good processing time on my renders despite that] and it also has the Intel Graphics 520 chip with 1 GB of RAM but I don't use it. As I understand it, my GeForce GPU is kind of a hybrid for gaming and rendering. I sacrificed a little processing power I had on my MSI machine with the NVIDEA Quadro card, but I had major problems with MSI and will not buy another of their workstations, so I am priced out of Quadro-class machines, unfortunately. Since I'm disabled the lighter weight on the Surface and the fact that it runs all of my graphics software makes me a fan. Not to mention I can take it with me when I'm waiting forever in the doctor's office....

BeeMKay

Check out this thread:  https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/927004/#Comment_927004

I'm not going to answer on your other stuff and questions, because frankly said, your messing around with files made my head spin and I wonder if any product still works that you have installed.

Studio has its own directories that don't go into the Runtime folder, so you'd need to keep them in the level above.

Good luck.