Content Library Question

DekeSlade

Can I simply drag and drop/move files and folders around in the Content Library? I'm usually fishing around the Daz Studio Formats>My DAZ 3D Library. There are tons of little annoyances where, God love em, content creators miss the path to a typo or misspelling so that I wind up with things like three different folders for Environments one some spell it differently. So it’s got:

My DAZ 3D Library\Enviroments
My DAZ 3D Library\Environment
My DAZ 3D Library\Environments

Than I have folders from various products that are completely empty though findable elsewhere,  if I search it I got buttloads of the missing placeholders, it’s all just kind of a mess. I don’t want to muck everything up so figured I’d ask first.

Thanks!

PxlzXppl


 

 

Lyrra Madril

Well there are two approaches here.  On one hand .. Smart Content wants you to leave things as they lay, so it (the database) knows where they are.  However, if you have a huge amount of non DAZ store items, or older posr format items Smart Content doens't know what to do with those.

I personally chose the 'sort the actual files' method and ignore Smart Content entirely.  So I go into File Manager and move files around so things are where I can find them. Remember Poser format stuff has to stay in the runtime folder so DS knows what it is, but you can certainly fold a specific prop + materials + poses all together to make things simpler on you.

IMPORTANT NOTE do NOT touch Data or Runtime: Geometries or Runtime: Textures.  Those have to stay where they are so the internal file calls can find their .obj and imagemaps

But everything in People, Environments, etc etc can be sorted out in a way that helps you find things. I  stuff  Environments and Architecture and Vehicles into Props and sort everything into categories in there, and then more subcategories. Why? well you see I started collecting content in Poser 4 and I have a massive heap of stuff. If I didn't sort everything I'd never find it again.

So to recap

Option A - leave things as they lay, use smart content

Option B - sort the files manually, and close the Smart Content tab forever

fastbike1

@Muttley

Yes you can. Just be sure that Studio is not running when you do this. I particu;arly use this to sort clothing by type (casual, lingeries, swimwear, footwear, etc) via folder structure rather than the Studio categories method.

Richard Haseltine

Be aware that moving things that do have metadata will break the database links, which are used for soem features of DS. I woudl say categorising the content is better - you can always report outright errors in the standard folder names https://www.daz3d.com/help/help-contact-us . A third option is to use .djl link files to place a ponter to the file in the correct/desired location, which you can do inside DS.

Aabacus

I've been lurking for a thread like this so I'll (slightly) hijack OPs comment. Where is the best place to organize content so I can find it?  I just want so say...oh...want a car now...then quickly click my way to a car. I can find it now but I need to remember...that's the 71 I'm looking for not the 69.   

 

DekeSlade

If I were a programmer I'd totally make something that would automatically add metadata to Poser or other third party content, which, I'm totally not a programmer so when I say "Doesn't seem like it would be that hard" that roughly translates to “I have no idea what I’m talking about.” BUT, wayyyyyy wayyyy  back in the days of Napster there were tools that would do that for an mp3, fill in the album name, song number, year, genera, even the album cover and that was twenty years ago! I think that might have been built into WinAmp now that I think about it.

As it stands, I actually never look at the smart tab for the reasons already discussed, to much content isn’t there. Digging around can be painful if I don’t remember who made it or some other rabbit hole, and search caps out at 1500 which sounds like a lot, but it’s 4 pages of thumbnails and often it’ll be a page or two of variants for a single item.

Appreciate the answers, will be doing a bit of each me thinks. I don’t get why the DB is such a big deal or why it breaks or why it cant clean the frikkin placeholders of obviously gone stuffs. At some point you start out with nothing so why can’t someone just delete their DB and have it rebuild it? And I think I read that used to be an option under maintenance, is that coming back or in the new beta? Feel like I read that it was meant to come back but might be wishful thinking.

So many files so little time, thanks all.
 

fastbike1

@Richard Haseltine "Be aware that moving things that do have metadata will break the database links, which are used for soem features of DS"

I must not use those features, whatever they are. Unless it is the "Smart Content" which I never use. I've been organizing by folder for years. First started doing it because a lot of people were complaining about spending time categorizing, then having some break the database. I also started because too many products had mispelled or non-standard paths (still see that).

Richard Haseltine

fastbike1 said:

@Richard Haseltine "Be aware that moving things that do have metadata will break the database links, which are used for soem features of DS"

I must not use those features, whatever they are. Unless it is the "Smart Content" which I never use. I've been organizing by folder for years. First started doing it because a lot of people were complaining about spending time categorizing, then having some break the database. I also started because too many products had mispelled or non-standard paths (still see that).

AutoFit also uses the CMS, I think Face Transfer does too, not sure which other features.