Folder naming suggestion for producers
This is a plea to all producers of commercial products for Daz Studio. When naming the folders where your product can be found within the Daz library can you leave out the folder which carries the producers name. I ask this because it makes finding what I want in the library difficult. I,E. if I want to find say a kitchen prop I know I have somewhere, I go into the props folder but all I see is a line of folders with producers names and no clue as to the content. I cant remeber every producers name and what they have made so I have to open each folder in turn to find the kitchen stuff Im looking for rather than having a list naming the product first, i.e kitchen stuff. I know you all want to advertise your presence but I already have the product so that is irrelevant and you could always put the name in a subsequent folder or display a logo png
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100% agree.I end up wasting HOURS trying to find stuff, as the search function does not always work. And a direct link to the help file from the product page would be helpful too...
This is a subject endlessly debated. Some people, like you, want to drop the folder grouping the author's products; others want to keep it as, in many cases, the stylistic differences mean that different authors' work cannot be readdily mixed.
Vanity folders are really a problem. So much so that I think stuff should be mirrored. One folder with categorized content one with vanity folders, mixing them together is really confusing and worse pa’s with content in vanity folders and outside them, not to mention all the legacy content in strange sub folders.
It’s hard to find stuff in an already dated and maze-like file structure. The store needs to implement an improved file structure for organizing the content even if it cannot address the older stuff a newer more efficient structure could really help alleviate the existing frustrating method.
Not going to happen. As Richard said, it's an endless debate. I asked them to do this 20 years ago when it was still mostly hobbyists who had more than enough time to give it due consideration, because I could foresee the problems it was going to cause in years to come. They thought I was crazy. I should've archived those old forum posts and IRC logs. I'd be hailed as Netstradamus today.
"But Hair can be either a Prop or a Figure" they cried.
"Fine" says I; "They're both Hair, so they go under the main Hair folder. Put Prop Hair in a Prop Hair subfolder sorted by artist name and Figure Hair in a Figure Hair subfolder sorted by artist name. "
"B...b...but" they further blubbered "Props go in Props and Figures go in Figures".
Ever see Rainman with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise? It was a lot like that, only worse.
And then of course they compound the matter by having multiple ways of naming their ego-trip folders - initials with an underscore, then with a dash, then without either, then with an exclamation point so they're always at the top of the sort order, then double exclamation points.
I understand that SciFi furniture and Victorian furniture and French Provincial furniture don't normally work together in a scene (unless it's a furniture store, which no one does, and can only be done once).
They will go together under a single Furniture folder under a single Props folder just fine. That's the issue here. Short Hair all goes in the Short Hair subfolder under Hair, doesn't it? Because it's hair, no matter who made it, no matter if it's long or short, figure or prop, it's Hair, so it goes in Hair first.
Smart Content was the greatest thing to happen. Poser still doesn't have a similar feature, and my 20-year-old Runtime folder looks like Dresden after the firebombing.
I had them all arranged neatly and logically at one time, but it's an uphill battle due to artistic schizophrenia. Many Content Creators can't even decide on their own individual standard, and you find things like Architectural assets from the same artist scattered between Props, Scenes, Accessories, Environments, and all the various subfolders.
That's what Categories are for; Daz knew that no matter what they tried to do, there would be people that were unhappy with the decision they made, so they gave us the ability to do it ourselves.
I would use your own categories as Daywalker mentioned above. This is not a PA choice, this is the standard directive from QA, so your request would need to be put into a helpdesk ticket. But as it is the standard setup in order for a product to pass QA, I'd doubt it will change.
Hi, My Daz Product library has over 4000 Download Manager products. I keep Non Daz3D products on a separate content library. I agree that there a problem. So i decided a couple of years ago to modify the Daz folders manually. My method is a bit time-consuming. But asurest that everything is named and storaged where I want it.
Everything downloads from the manager to a temporal folder I call TEMP. Then I manually move things to personalised directories. Overwrite older files and change names when required. I eliminate all Artis name directories and distribute files accordingly.
My Architecture folder has several subfolders like, SCI-FI, URBAN INTERIORS, URBAN EXTERIORS, COUNTRYSIDE, PLANTS,etc., and a PROPS subcategory with Props Decor, Props Kitchen, Props for Persons usage, etc. Furniture is also a separate folder.
Same for people, Genesys has 3 Clothing directories. Him, Her, Boths. ... When a product has a sword with hand poses I just move the prop and poses to the specific clothing.
Poses I use only for poses and divide or duplicate products that contain poses for 2 characters.
Many PA should review and improve their product naming and organization. But, It will be very dificut to create a standar that will please everyone. One will always need to modify it to your personal likening .
Again, this is not a problem a PA can resolve, this comes from DAZ QA on how to set up products, thus it needs to go into a helpdesk ticket not to PAs. As this is a standard, I doubt it will change. But this is why you have the ability to create categories within DAZ Studio.
Unfortunately the category creation option is pretty slow. It takes forever to do a large library
Plus studio can lose categories or something becomes corrupted..
I have finally resorted to manual install as well. I dislike losing the functionality of product view but with a manual install I don’t worry my products are going to disappear because something happens with the database