Saving .duf Assets for others

WendyLuvsCatz

I have figured out how to use the transfer tool to conform my own mostly Carrara created meshes to Genesis as clothing and hair.
I can save them as assets with .duf, data folders with geometry etc, move them around on my computer and they still load. but am unable to figure out how to share with others.
I got a dress to work for one user after a bit of file searching but other things not at all.
not about to set the world on fire with my very simple amateurish models but still would like to know how to make them shareable and loadable by others on Genesis.
My latest effort was a LAMH geometry export tidied up a bit in Hexagon but while it loads successfully into Carrara 8.5 and conforms to Genesis there too for me, other users cannot get the files to load.
Is there a trick to saving the data, uv and texture files to a seperate folder for use with and referenced by the duf?
or
a tutorial on this?

my thread with the hair in question.

Richard Haseltine

As long as the item was saved as an asset, you need just the \Data\YourName\YourProductName folder, where the names are those you entered in the ave dialogue, plus either a sceen subset or a character preset to load it into the user's scenes.

WendyLuvsCatz

I have those but did not set it up as a merge-able file set as my content folder is very different to most peoples
no "my library" for a start
the reason, I use several external drives.
you really have to merge the data folder and work out where to put the rest, probably under people Genesis but I infact saved it to a folder outside my content so I could zip it up and added the data one, dragging it in still loaded the hair in both Daz studio and Carrara.
will try again to copy the normal structure most have, my computer does not seem to care where stuff goes, it still finds it.
it was all saved on external drives btw, maybe I should save assets to my documents in the more traditional set up then move them for my use.

Richard Haseltine

If you set up an empty folder as a content directory and save the asset to that you can tell DS to put all of the files there, which should simplify matters. it should be a checkbox at the bottom of the save options dialogue.

WendyLuvsCatz

thanks Richard, I must have missed that checkbox, will look

WendyLuvsCatz

I do not seem to have an option and my Asset directory unchangeable

my set up below

Richard Haseltine

Ah, well either they changed it or I'm misremembering - but if you set the base directory at the top to a new, empty, content directory that should collect your files (except textures, if any, unless they were already there) in one place ready to zip. You need, in the directory manager 9second image) to highlight the DAZ Studio formats line, then click Add on the left and select the folder you want to use - then it should appear as an option for base data directory.

WendyLuvsCatz

yes did, had to change back afterwards
updated my file but as you said, the texture needs to be browsed for
Jaderail has tried to help too but I am really thinking content creation for others not my thing anyway,
I only wanted to share something as a suggestion (see http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/232095/) Dartanbeck was looking into whether carrara dynamic hair can made into an obj and rigged which it cannot be and I was suggesting LAMH and sharing a sample I did for him to see if it suited his needs.

mjc1016

I've never known/seen the textures get put (moved) into the data folder structure, they always stay in the Runtime/Texture folder (or folder they are loaded from) . If you load them from somewhere outside the texture folder, that is the path that will be written and the that folder will have to be included in the redistributable file. I suppose you could create a texture folder in the data folder, but most folks expect the textures to be in the Texture folder..

You could also open the duf and read the path/directories it is looking for items in...either save it in uncompressed format (check box at the bottom of the first image) or use the batch converter in DS to uncompress them. But like the old cr2, pp2, ds files the paths are in there...and you will either need to include all the folders listed or move (and edit/reload/resave) the file with all the stuff (geometry, textures, uvs,) in the same place...

But the basics you need are the geometry (data), the preset/definition and the textures...and they need to mirror the path/directory structure you saved the item with...for the most part the first two are pretty easy to find. The textures tend to be the problem. One of the last things I do, before packaging an item is move all the textures to a Runtime/Texture/mjc/itemname folder and then make sure I load them from there and resave the item.