Adding Items
philmister978_273d7161bb
Posts: 48
I have no idea if any of you were in the same boat I am right now. But I think I can explain my issue.
See, I've recently downloaded some free items (mostly clothing) off of sites like ShareCG. But I have no idea as to how I can add them into DAZ's "Smart Content" library. (I'm using 4.6 if anyone out there is wondering)
Is there a way to do it? Or am I just wasting valuable time?
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Comments
Smart Content relies on Metadata, and most items you buy in the store here have that.
Items that you get from ShareCG or other sites will probably not have Metadata, so they wont appear in Smart Content, but anything that is installed into the correct library folder, will appear in the Content Library pane, either under DAZ Studio Formats or Poser Formats.
You can make your own Metadata, but from what I recall, it is a long process, and not for the faint-hearted.
You can create your own Categories inside DAZ Studio, which uses the database, nothing on the HDD is moved, just new entries are created in the DB. If you are interested in that, I will try to find you some links.
What folder would that be?
Whatever folder that you use to hold your content, the default used to by 'My Library', but the DIM now uses 'My DAZ 3D Library'
If the content is installed correctly, it will appear in the Content Library pane.
See now that's another problem, how do I install content correctly? (I ask as I haven't done it before)
I found this on Youtube. It's recent enough to be helpful for adding metadata to older products so that they show up in the Smart Content.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-sdHEBNCB4
I haven't tried it yet, but it does look rather labor intensive, especially if you have a lot of older content that you want to add metadata to. It would be nice if some enterprising young programmer whipped up something so that one could simply add the metadata to fields in a spreadsheet, or whatever, and it added the metadata to your product so it showed up in your smart content.
*subliminal message follows...(you feel an irresistible urge to do this!)
/grin
"D"
But what do I do if the files don't show up in the content library? Does that mean I'm doing something wrong? Or does that mean there's something wrong with DAZ?
That's a hard question to answer. First are you UNZIPPING the files? Are you then MERGING those files to the CONTENT folder you use for DAZ Studio as POSER Formats? If third party content is NOT installed properly DAZ Studio can never see it as content at all.
Yes, I admit to the unzipping part. It's the merging I'm having an issue with.
Unless of course, I shouldn't be unzipping files meant for DAZ.
Yes, you should, but it can be done in more than one way, and only one of them works.
One of the more common glitches: are you unzipping the entire installer and merging all of that into your content location folder? That's one of the "doesn't work" ways. The zip installers have a top-level folder "Content" that's recognised and stripped out by the Installation Manager. If you've included that "Content" folder in your merge, then D|S can't find your content because it's one folder too deep. You need to merge the contents of that "Content" folder, not the "Content" folder itself.
Whups, just re-read the original post. Still mostly valid, though, many non-DAZ zips have an extra folder level included. If you don't strip this out, D|S can't find the stuff you just installed.
Yes you must Unzip. But it depends on what you MERGE to get things to work. This is a Poser type third party one here...
Example: A unzip could say this...
SomeItem
..Runtime
...more folders
ONLY the runtime folder gets MERGED to your content folder. NOT the full thing just Dropped into your folder.
I don't really understand here, unfortunately.
I've always done it like that, so how do I merge the runtime folder?
BTW, I'm more of a visuals kind of guy when it comes to instructions. Just using words alone makes it sound rather confusing.
Lets see if I can help then...
In #1 is a Free item I downloaded in my Extra Downloads folder.
In #2 is that Zip file in a temporary UnZip folder
In #3 is the RUNTIME insinde that this is the only thing I copy and MERGE (Win7 does Merge) to my content folder.
Then the content will show in my Content Library Tab in the POSER FORMATS section.
I get the gist of it now. But here's my next question: Is that DAZ or an ordinary window?
These are views of Windows Explorer.
Go to Edit > Preferences > Content Library > Content Directory Manager, and look at what you have listed there for DAZ Studio Formats and Poser Formats, if you expand the listing and post a screenshot it would be very useful.
Do you intend to install DAZ 3D content yourself, or are you going to use the DAZ Install Manager (DIM)? The first thing you need to do, is to decide how you are going to install content from DAZ 3D, and where you are going to put it.
There is a lot of free content available in your My Account > Product Library area. Genesis Starter Essentials, Genesis 2 Starter Essentials and Default Lights and Shaders for DAZ Studio. You can find them all under 'DAZ Studio 4.6 Pro', download and install these items first (use the DIM), and it will create a folder called 'My DAZ 3D Library' here : C:\Users\Public\Documents\My DAZ 3D Library.
You can then use that library to install any other content that you get from other sites, but you will have to install it yourself, DIM only installs content bought (or free) from the store here.
I have those files already, so I should have the folder.
I see, and I install those other files from other sites the same way that Jaderail explained right?
Oh and I forgot to ask before, but how do I merge files?