Transferring to new computer

Krirobt@yahoo.com

I recently got a new laptop and downloaded the latest Daz3d, then I transferred over some scenes I had saved on my old laptop.  The scenes were comprised of Daz figures from the content database, but also some imported obj files and some texture files.  Well everything that was OG daz content transferred fine, but it left all the textures I had added behind. I get that, and I understand I need to go to the surfaces tab and relink those models to their texture files.  But everything that had been imported as an obj just turned into an amorphous blob, as if there was some link to the original obj file (still on the old computer) that was broken.  As if when I imported them into the scene initially, they weren't really in the scene but just being referenced, if that makes any sense.

Do I need to hunt down all those old obj files and bring them to the new computer and rebuild those scenes?  Or am I just missing some setting?  Is there something analogous to the surfaces tab that I need to use to link those imported models to their original obj files, like a texture?

I'd appreciate any advice.  I'm a pretty simplistic user, but I can generally navigate around within Daz and find things.

 

Thanks in advance!

NorthOf45

The big gray box where the figure or prop should be means that the actual geometry cannot be found. If you load an asset that contained anything that is not in DAZ Studio native format (like .obj, directly or indirectly like from Poser .cr2's), those assets were converted and saved in the auto-adapted folder under (Your Library)/data. If you look at it (on the old computer), there will probably be hundreds of folders from all the stuff you've loaded in the past.

If you look in the saved scene files (.duf), you will see which auto-adapted files and folders you will need to copy over. If the .duf was compressed, you can simply open it as a .zip and extract it so that you can read it. There would basically be one folder per element (complete figures or props) in the scene that need to be copied.

Prince Wao

I have an old Daz Studio on my PC and when I bought a new laptop specifically for the latest DS and which I virtually only use for Daz I was able to go to my Product Library on site and download everything to the laptop. It's time consuming but brilliant!

raphaelmartines

NorthOf45 said:

If you look in the saved scene files (.duf), you will see which auto-adapted files and folders you will need to copy over. If the .duf was compressed, you can simply open it as a .zip and extract it so that you can read it. There would basically be one folder per element (complete figures or props) in the scene that need to be copied.

I understand this frustration. Is there any way to collect all files used in the scene when saving? I mean, if I have some external files that is not on the Daz library (personal account), I should copy the entire library to a pen drive, for example, and paste to my new workstation. This way, I became a prisioner of my computer.

Some ideas?
Thanks!

NorthOf45

You can save various parts as Support Assets (Scene, Figure/Prop, Morph, etc.) in folders of your choice under (Your Library)/data, much like the vendor structure. You will first get a dialog box to select the folder to save it in, which might go to your default library the first time, based on the type of asset you are saving. You can navigate to the library of your choice (I prefer to not save things in the installation library, keeping that clear of any user files) to store your own work. (You can have as many libraries as you want, just make sure to include them in the Content Directory Manager.) Here you have a choice of how to organize your files, one product per folder with subfolders for each prop, figure, material settings, etc., or like the main installation library, with all props in their own folder in one place, another for figures, one for morphs, one for materials, etc.

Then you get another dialog box where you select the Asset Directory (i.e. Library, if you have more than one), Vendor Name (the name you put in Studio's Preferences-General-Authorship by default), a Product Name, the item name, Metadata info and a few other options. So, it will take a little preparation, but you get a self-contained set of files and folders in the end.

The various parts will be saved in .dsf format that will be independent of the original source files. I haven't tried all the methods, but I imagine saving as Scene Assets will put everything in one place, which might limit how individual parts can be reused. Maybe save each independent part as a Figure/Prop Asset in its own folder to reuse with other projects.

Not 100% sure saving a scene after doing all that will save using the new Support Assets or if they all have to be reloaded and saved as a new scene. (I did it once when I didn't know what I was doing, and all this stuff happened in a blur, and I don't remember exactly what the steps were.)

What I would eventually like to do is package the individual parts into DIM-ready archives (i.e., using Content Package Assist) so that I can install (and uninstall) them properly to maybe replace the original old formats and, more importantly, back up my work, in easy-to-chew pieces.

Richard Haseltine

Yes, you can copy the files over. DS has not created these auto Adapted/Auto Converted files for several versions now, any assets that haven't been saved out as assets by the user are simply embedded in the scene file.

Krirobt@yahoo.com

Awesome! Thanks, I'll check it out.