Get Studio to recognize Content reorganization.

fastbike1

I organize my Content Library with Windows File Manager. I always use DIM to download products. This doesn't seem to cause noticiable issues with scene creatiosn, rendering , etc. However, examination of the log file shows some "could not find" statements. These are related to reorganized content, not missing content.

I essentially create categories with my file structure. Here are a couple of typical examples:

People/Genesis 8 Female/Characters/Vendor Name/ Character name  where vendor name is Daz, BlueJaunte, Jessaii, etc and the character name is what you  would expect. Inside the character's folder is the duf files then Iray/ material dufs. I don't bother with 3DL materials and I generally do away with subfolders such as Materials/Iray/... since i try to shorten paths for the backup process.

another example is:

People/Genesis 8 Female/Clothing/Casual/product name

People/Genesis 8 Female/Clothing/Fantasy/product name

How might I get studio to recognize the reorganization? When I double click the character duf file icon in the People/Genesis 8 Female/Characters root, Stuio loads the right character.

 

Richard Haseltine

What are the errors, and where are you looking to reorganise the content?

fastbike1

The errors are in the log file. In this case Charlotte 8's Iray eyelashes don't get loaded, requiring me to load them manually. While not a particularly odious task, it made me wonder how many similar issues are hiding. My Studio installation is very trouble free compared to what I see in the Forum, but I do wonder.

I am not looking to reorganize my content. I am hoping to have Studio recognize where my specific content is found. This is not a Content Directory Manager path issue

Log file entry: 2019-12-22 12:37:57.234 DEBUG: Could not locate preset file: /People/Genesis 8 Female/Characters/Charlotte 8/Materials/Iray/Charlotte 8 Eyelashes.duf

The actual duf file is in /People/Genesis 8 Female/Characters/DAZ/Charlotte 8/Iray

Thanks for your consideration.

Richard Haseltine said:

What are the errors, and where are you looking to reorganise the content?

 

kenshaw011267

You're going to have to manually edit all the files that have dependencies. Those have hard coded relatiove paths.

Seems like more trouble than it could ever be worth.

fastbike1

Totally agree. Right noe any problems are limited or not noticable to me since I've been organizing like this since 4.7. Not to mention the DAZ Originals files are encrypted.

kenshaw011267 said:

You're going to have to manually edit all the files that have dependencies. Those have hard coded relatiove paths.

Seems like more trouble than it could ever be worth.

 

jestmart

The only safe way to move files and folders is from within DS in the Content Library pane.

fastbike1

How exactly do you move folders in the Content Library Pane? I don't see any "Move" option when I right click on a folder. Not to mention that my content is already organizaed as I want. 

jestmart said:

The only safe way to move files and folders is from within DS in the Content Library pane.

 

Bejaymac

Moving DUF files about "normally" doesn't cause any issues, but with G8 you have the issue of the seperate eyelash conformer, there is a "call" in every character preset to not only load it, but to apply that characters eyelash preset to it.

So moving G8 DUF files around also requires you to edit DUF files, as there is at least one pathway that needs to be changed.

With DS4 native files the only encrypted files are DSE script files or a product that can only be downloaded with Connect, DUF/DSF are compressed, but there is a tab in DS to batch compress/un-compress them.

MadHammer

I know people hate necromanced threads, but I had this same issue.

I started poking around but noticed that DAZ Originals, or at least most of them, for Genesis 8 did not exhibit this same behavior. So I started looking at the Character DUF files. First off, it is 2021 and this is still an issue, that's really bad. It is a crime and inexcusable to put explicit paths in any code, all code should understand relative pathing. Second, the DAZ originals, that load error free after file reorganization, have "worked around" the issue with Genesis 8 Eyelashes, by placing a copy of the default .DUF file in the data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 8/Female/Morphs/DAZ 3D/... subdirectory. Since most people who like to better organize the file structure like myself know never to touch either the data/... or Runtime/... subdirectories, the DAZ Originals still work fiine. It is also not a matter of just copying the default to data/... as each offending Character .DUF file still would need editing. 

My question then, just thinking out loud, does DAZ not provide a programming style guide to it's creators so that there is some consistency between assets?