Okay, just for the record, I'm not purposely TRYING to cause a ruckus or controversy here, but when two authorities both have polar opposite ways of doing things, my curiosity kicks in and i can't help myself, but ask questions until I just either give up and say forget it, or, preferably, somebody gives me a satisfactory answer.
That little preamble said, the following is a snippet from a response by Teyon on the SM forum regarding the geometry folder and what goes in them. Also, again, just for the record, recall that i did ask that someone from Hivewire stick their head in and comment. I also do know that people are busy or just not interested in what they may consider trivial or even settled matters. However, the situation just seems so weird to me because I tend to like across the board standards, and i'm not seeing any here.
Teyon Global Moderator
a day ago
@eclark1849 Personal Opinion time:
Well let's look at it like this then, and I'm not trying to purposefully point fingers but if the App is doing it a certain way by default, why are brokerages making their vendors do something contrary? I get that Poser started off with things a certain way but time has passed and things have changed. Be open to change or be left behind is how I look at it. The fact that brokerages aren't willing to do that is part of the overarching problem I have with the Poser community and their reluctance to let go of old things (content in particular). Things change for a reason - usually out of need or to make things easier. Insisting things stay the same or supports old ideas is only going to hold up progress in the long run. This query about geometry placement being one of them.
That opinion aside, the question, I feel, is pointless right now. If you're a vendor and you're selling your content at a site and they have a particular way they want you to do it, you have to do it that way until you convince THEM there's a better way. It's messed up and tedious and not vendor friendly but it's your choice to sell there. There are other avenues for sale. Gumroad, Turbosquid, etc. Other Poser specific venues too I'm sure. So yeah, if you don't like the way something is done somewhere and that place is counting on your buck to stay alive, I say get a few like minded souls and voice your opinion to them. In terms of the application, it's pretty clear Poser doesn't care where the geometry is as long as the CR2 knows about it. So any restriction is coming from a broker and at that point you should ask them why.
End of personal opinion.
Okay, consider the question asked.... why?
I'm going to go out on a limb here. Teyon doesn't use much pre-made content, nor sell much content. I've followed Teyon on various sites, and he posts his own personal content almost exclusively. What he doesn't model from scratch himself, he sculpts. I don't think he has much Poser content that isn't his own. It makes sense that he'd find quick and easy access to OBJ files important. Most of what I've seen him post has either been sculpts from scratch or sculpts of SM content. He spends a lot more time in Zbrush than in his library.
I admire Teyon's expertise. But he's not the norm in the content community. People who collect hundreds, or even thousands, of products and freebies are. People who don't model and don't sculpt. People who don't know or care about resource files. People who tend to organize their collections as they see fit, not as thousands of different creators each saw fit.
One of the biggest critiques DS users have about Poser is the limits on its library structure. And one of the most consistent feature upgrades has been to make the library more flexible.
Most content collectors organize their libraries in a way that makes sense to them. People like Teyon can figure out how to find an OBJ in the Geometries folder. But your average content community user has no clue what's wrong when they tidy up their runtime, and their content stops working. Not only do they not know how to fix it, but they have access to a whole lot of content that will work.
I've lurked and participated in lots of threads on content organization over the years. I've never, ever seen anyone post, "I just leave everything where it installs." Everyone posting had their own way of organizing content. The only norm I've ever seen is to install to an empty runtime, then move the content where you want.
If your content uses absolute links to resources that live in a preset library, that content breaks as soon as your customers change so much as one letter of that default path.
I have to spend _hours_ fixing SM native content every time I upgrade. Figures, hair, clothes, the works. I have unzip and edit everything. The alternative is a mess in my runtime. Either way, it's a pain in my butt.
To be very honest, I even have an issue with HW figure morphs. I have to alter paths to morphs with each upgrade. Which also means I won't distribute any characters based on those morphs. I'd prefer not to rely solely on my own morphing skills. But even I used the HW default paths, others are just as likely to customize their library. I won't knowingly distribute content that brittle.
It's not just a matter of opinion. It's a matter of usage. Poser's default works if you're building a library of your own content, or editing a few items made by someone else. It entirely breaks if you're making content for someone who's organizing a huge preset library so it makes sense to them. Everyone in the community can reference resources you put in Geometries, Textures, or Morphs folders. Anyone who references resources in the presets library risks users thinking their content just doesn't work.
