December 26 - Quidam viewer
First, I would like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy new Year.
This year the traditional Christmas update comes with a good surprise:
N-Sided
Quidam added to the list of Softwares supported by P3dO.
This update also deals with new Poser
XMP format.
Download P3dO 2.4

Quidam support
N-Sided Quidam
is an oustanding Character modeling Software. I like it very much, for its ease of use
and completeness.
Quidam also comes with a library containing Hair, Cloths, Props, Poses and because
It is more convenient to browse 3D libraries with P3dO I went to work on this. And so...

When browsing
Quidam and
Argile libraries P3dO
is showing QDM (Quidam Models) and QDP (Quidam Poses) thumbnails at a larger size than Quidam
does.

And a 3D preview of
QDM meshes with the usual list of
attached references (Textures) and the ability to read from archives.
All you need to select the best props to fit your Quidam
QUI in progress or to
preview your own QDMs (complex Figure with attached Props).
Figures, Props, Hairs, Cloths, Furniture,... P3dO will show all.
note N-Sided gave me all requested information about the QDM format.
Because export plugins are addons to Quidam, export of QDM to OBJ is not possible in P3dO.

Poser XMP
Poser XMP are Metadata files (XMP stands for Extensible Metadata Platform) that
contain various information about the current file. There are very few XMP files
at the moment but expect to see them coming en masse.
What is interesting in the XMP are the Pose instructions and other such information.
P3dO is showing the most useful Metadata information at the top of the Figure InDepth tree,
so that you can make the best use of it.
At the moment other information (mostly copyright) are not shown. I will complete this
soon but Pose utils information will stay on top.

Translations

Swedish translation has been updated thanks to another contribution by our all time Swedish
translator:
Jennifer Lind. Your help is much appreciated Jen.
If you have time and skill I would appreciate your help.
Please
contact me if interested and get a P3dO pro license
for your time.
November 19 - P3dO 2.4 massive update
Lots of new features, lots of improvements make this version one of the
most massive update in P3dO history.
So I am sorry but this is also a massive announcement.
Here's a summary of main additions:

ZipInstaller 2.4 |

Find dialog |

Poser Categories colored nodes |

Poser Navigation history |

Enhanced Favorites |

Runtime Manager 2.3.3 |

Pattern Renamer 2.4 |

RGBA layers viewer |
And also:

OBJ exporter update

3DS Max thumbnails

Alpha channel & RGBA layers viewer

DDS, TPL, PXR images formats

EXIF data
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 ZipInstaller 2.4 - Poser dedicated unzipper
ZipInstaller purpose is to:
Install from ZIP into Poser Runtimes.
Uninstall from a previous ZIP extraction.
Compared to 2.3 version, ZipInstaller 2.4 is a new software: new interface and
much more features.
Install from ZIP
ZipInstaller will list a Zip content, showing pictures thumbnails, collisions,
Poser references and... will check if the Zip extraction paths matches the ones
contained in the main Figure file.
Helper dots (
) will indicate if you
may unzip as-is or not.
The example below shows 2 Textures ready to unzip. It also shows that those Textures
already exist in target directory (yellow flag).
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But in case of error ( )
simply click the Scene button
to fix destination paths. Very simple.
Also, ZipInstaller will list Poser References not found in the Archive. Like this:
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Path error detection and fix, missing references, Collision detection, thumbnails.
ZipInstaller is a very rich Poser unzipper.
Uninstall
The uninstall doesn't require an Unsetup list or anything like that, simply open the ZIP
again with ZipInstaller and select the Uninstall tab.
The plugin will detect the files that have been installed from this ZIP.
Click Uninstall, et voila !
Like Awk does empty directories will be removed as well.
See also this
ZipInstaller screenshot (popup) or visit
ZipInstaller page for more information.
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 Find dialog
Show directory content option
That little check-box is a blessing.
By clicking "Show directory content" all directories whose name match your query
will be populated and their content shown in P3dO's search result set.
Little box, powerful effect: type "Victoria V3 V4" in document name, check "Any term"
and "Show directory content" and P3dO will fetch all your Victoria stuff.
Sort by directory
This new sort option is the consequence of the above.
Sort by directory is set automatically each time you perform a Search, Explore subfolders
or Explore Favorites (new, see Enhanced Favorites below), and unset
when you navigate as usual.
Thus the above "Victoria" search will be sorted by directory.
A directory icon will indicate a directory change in the thumbnails view.
Enhanced find
As for the Find dialog itself you may now refine your search and ask for
All terms, Any terms or Exact phrase when looking for a file:
- All terms: i.e "V4 shoes" will return Victoria shoes files,
- Any term: i.e "V4 shoes" will return both Victoria and shoes files (including non Vicky shoes),
- Exact phase: i.e "V4 shoes" will only return files whose name matches "*V4 shoes*".
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Directory Tree - Poser Categories with colored nodes
In the nightmare jungle of your numerous Poser Runtimes, Categories, sub-categories
and even sub-categories sub-directories here comes colored directory nodes
per Poser Category.
Needless to say this is a great visual helper for many operations.
Color is the same as the file extension block in thumbnails view.
Of course other Categories not shown in the side snapshot are colored too, but also
Textures and Geometry nodes.
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 Poser Navigation history - Poser Categories Popup menu
I updated the Popup Runtime directory list popup menu
which is now reflecting your Poser navigation, like Poser does.
See side snapshot for what it gives.
This will be another great time saver while browsing your Poser libraries.
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 Enhanced Favorites
Did you know ?
That little drop down button at the top of P3dO docking Windows is a menu.
In the case of Repository it gives you the ability to switch the Repository to other views
like: Favorites, My documents, any custom directory,...
Thus you may use the Repository as your Favorites navigation system, and then have both
Favorites and directory tree at the same time.
In order to better use this feature the ability to customize
the Repository thumbnails has been added (a Tiled view is the best imho).
Explore Favorites command has been added to context menu.
This is the same as Explore subfolders but where the subfolders would be your Favorites.
Find command has been added to folder links to quickly
perform a Find from the Favorites nodes (Find command has also been added to Directory
cells in thumbnails view).
Add to Favorites new dialog that will retain
previous directory and Favorites icons automatically customized to the corresponding
Poser Category (like PoserFavorite does).
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 Runtime Manager 2.3.3
Runtime Manager, aka AwkPlugin, aka Scene Manager is a most convenient tool
to manage your Poser Runtime directories.
What can I do with Runtime Manager ?
Scene Manager
Delete (uninstall) a 3D Scene and References at once
Move a 3D Scene and References to another Runtime
Empty directories are deleted after the operation !
This not only for Poser but for other 3D file formats supported by P3dO as well:
Carrara, 3DS, LWO,...
Directory Manager
For Poser only there's also a Directory Manager that will grab all Scenes on a given
P3dO set (directory, subdirectories, search result,...) and do the same as above (Delete or
Move complete directories).
Directory manager is the tool to arrange your Poser Runtimes: split a Runtime, Merge 2 Runtimes,
do the basic cleanup and management.
What's new ?

(#A) Menu like header Tab bar to distinguish between the 3 modes
(Move, Copy or Delete).
(#B) Navigation button: when an operation has been concluded you may
go back to the main window and perform another operation. Like deleting scenes one by one, copying
the same scene to several destination.
(#C) Destination path customization button: the Poser relative path
is not necessarily the one you want to copy your files to. This button offers various alternative
solutions.
Visit Awk Runtime manager page for more information.
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 Pattern Renamer 2.4
Pat 2.4 comes with a handy 3 files WYSIWYG preview (see snapshot below) of your renaming
settings and a new concept in mass renaming called: templates.

There are 4 templates available:
Renumber
Directory Name
Modified Date
Creation Date
Pat already used templates for Renumbering and you'll see usage is the same, except there
is a supplementary step: clicking the "Add Template" button to insert other templates.
Date templates customization (Day, Month, Year) is not that user friendly, this will be improved.
Note that it is possible to insert regular characters between templates.
Another feature is smooth refreshing: Past versions
of Pat refreshed the whole P3dO thumbnails when updating. That one will just refresh the
renamed cells, and the selection will remain unchanged, allowing another mass renaming
on the same set.
Visit Pattern Renamer page for more information.
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OBJ exporter update
Did you know ?
Since 1.9, you may convert current 3D scene to OBJ.
Well, this is the purpose of that button

and
is based on the Save As dialog.
The whole exporter has been reviewed, simplified and new options added to generate MTL
Texture paths.
Tip when exporting to OBJ click that check box
("Prompt for formats options").
This will automatically show the format options dialog once you have selected the file name.

3DS Max thumbnails

Special mention for this cute feature.
P3dO is showing system thumbnails provided by Max shell extension. So you must have
Max (or the shell extension) to see something.

If you know other Paint or 3D software with Windows thumbnails don't hesitate to
report them to me, I will add those asap.
btw
Paint Shop Pro and
Painter Windows like Explorer thumbnails support
are coming soon.

Anime Studio thumbnails
Anime Studio thumbnails are associated to Anime Studio files in the same way as P3dO does for
Poser, Daz Studio and
Bryce.
This is the first in a series of Updates to add Anime Studio support to P3dO.
Anime Studio now has a Poser like content manager but no doubt P3dO is far far ahead.

Alpha channel & RGBA layers viewer

I reviewed a number of image loaders to add RGBA information to the InDepth tree.
These are:
DDS, TGA, PSD, TIFF and
BMP formats.

RGBA layer viewing is a feature which already exists in P3dO.
It is the ability to combine Red, Green, Blue and Alpha individually, or select any combination,
by checking the appropriate check box in InDepth tree.
I reviewed this and added a
ctrl+W shortcut to allow switching from keyboard.
As well
ctrl+T has been added to set Transparent and Opaque picture
preview from keyboard. Note that when "Opaque" preview is set, layer switch
will loop through RGB channels, regardless of existing Alpha channel in picture.

New pictures formats and updates

Direct Draw Surface (
DDS):
I completed the already existing DDS reader.
P3dO is now supporting the most common DDS resources formats:
A8R8G8B8, X8R8G8B8, A8B8G8R8, X8B8G8R8, R8G8B8, A4R4G4B4, X4R4G4B4, A8L8, V8U8,
DXT1, DXT3, DXT5 and ATI2 (aka 3Dc aka BC5_UNORM).
Some others are coming, to complete the recommended requirement of a DirectX DDS viewer.

Nintendo Texture Palette Library (
TPL): I8, RGB5A3, RGBA8 and CMPR
formats, first texture only. So far, P3dO is the only TPL browser. If you need some other
TPL formats, I just need TPL sample files to provide them.

Pixar image (
PXR). Probably not complete, I did this one
on my own from Photoshop exported pictures.

EXIF data
P3dO is now showing Jpeg EXIF data in the InDepth tree. From Archives as well of course.
This first version is intended to validate the EXIF parsing, so feel free to
contact me for any oddities. I expect a plural, here :).
Landscape vs Portrait, IPTC and GPS information are yet to come. I promise soon.

Other additions and fix

Thumbnails cache speed has been improved - should say fixed -
and your pictures thumbnails will now load almost instantly.

InDepth tree list
INJ/REM content.

Poser displacement maps added to the Poser references
list in InDepth tree and a bug fix on INJ/REM references.

MTL added to the OBJ references list.
Poser viewer deeper search for Textures
(now similar to Poser).
Pose viewer allow viewing of partial PZ2
(body parts).
ZipExplorer fixed number of files issue.

Thumbnails view auto scroll when dragging over the edges.
Rsr2Png 2.3.4 updated UI

shift + delete will definitely delete a file like in Windows Explorer

Custom Formats in options dialog: add new extensions to P3dO's internal filter list

Directory tree: Faster in both expanding and refreshing.

Fixed: when renaming a directory, the renamed node is automatically sorted.

Fixed: navigation history and I updated to Vista like history navigation.

Fixed:
Carrara References list in Scene Manager (2.3 bug).

Fixed: thumbnail vanish when dropping (copy) a file on a
Tree node.

Fixed: crash when reading some Zipped/Rared picture formats (PSP,
PCX and probably some others).

Translations

Dutch translation updated, thank you again
Frans.

Spanish translation updated, thanks to
Luis Salgado Duarte. Thank you so much Luis.

French translation updated by me.
November 12 - P3dO pro 2.4 (beta)
P3dO 2.4 first release. The purpose of this upload is to validate 2.4 - Eagerly waiting
for feedbacks :) Then 2.4 will be officially declared released next Friday and P3dO 2.4
will be released too.
Of course 2.4 is similar to 2.3.5, since 2.3.5 was work in progress on 2.4, but there
are still new features. Note that my what's new list from 2.3 to 2.4 contains as much
as 34 features and bug fixes. Probably a record in P3dO history.
I will describe 2.4 in detail next week. Today let's just talk about new features since
2.3.5. For a more complete reference you may read the
2.3.5 updates page.

Poser Categories Popup menu
I updated the Popup Runtime directory list popup menu

which is now reflecting your Poser navigation, like Poser does.
See above snapshot for what it gives.
This will be another great time saver while browsing your Poser libraries.

EXIF data
P3dO is now showing Jpeg EXIF data in the InDepth tree. From Archives as well of course.
This first version is intended to validate the EXIF parsing, so feel free to
contact me for any oddities. I expect a plural, here :).
Landscape vs Portrait, IPTC and GPS information are yet to come. I promise soon.
note The thumbnails cache speed has been improved - should say fixed - and your pictures
thumbnails will now load almost instantly.

New pictures formats

Nintendo Texture Palette Library (TPL). I8, RGB5A3, RGBA8 and CMPR
formats, first texture only. So far, P3dO is the only TPL browser.

Pixar image (PXR). Probably not complete, I did this one
on my own from Photoshop export images.
October 29 - Pattern Renamer 2.4
P3dO Explorer 2.4 will be available in 2 weeks so this month update is a limited one
with two plugins:
PatternRenamer 2.4
ZipInstaller 2.4.

Pattern Renamer 2.4

Pat 2.4 comes with a handy 3 files WYSIWYG preview (above snapshot) of your renaming
settings and a new concept in mass renaming called:
templates.
There are 4 templates available:

Renumber

Directory Name

Modified Date

Creation Date
Pat already used templates for Renumbering and you'll see usage is the same, except there
is a supplementary step: clicking the "Add Template" button to insert other templates.
Date templates customization (Day, Month, Year) is not that user friendly, this will be improved.
Note that it is possible to insert regular characters between templates.
Another feature that will be activated with P3dO 2.4 is smooth refreshing: Past versions
of Pat refreshed the whole P3dO thumbnails when updating. That one will just refresh the
renamed cells, and the selection will remain unchanged, allowing another mass renaming
on the same set.
Visit
Pattern Renamer page for more information.

ZipInstaller 2.4
And yet another ZipInstaller update. I am not done with this software yet, there are
many other updates coming.
This version adds a list of References not found in Archive. This may be a normal
situation (if for example the missing Reference is Victoria OBJ), but it may not.
Anyway, in case ZipInstaller is not able to find a Reference in the archive it will add it
at the bottom of the archive content, like this:

See also this
ZipInstaller screenshot (popup) or visit the
plugin page
for more information.

Other
P3dO 2.4 will be available in 2 weeks.