After 20+ years...
SnowSultan
Posts: 3,648
...I've decided to no longer manually sort my 3D content and let installed products end up wherever they're supposed to. Smart Content is useful when you quickly want to find compatible items or textures for the product you're using, although I still need to figure out if there's a way to filter stuff (I don't want to see 3DL MATs, etc).
I will say one thing though...lol, you PAs are some of the most disorganized people I've ever come across. I would hate to have to do your taxes. :) My content folders now look like everyone's texture folders; so many vanity directories, vendor icons everywhere, folders outside of where they should be, a "Clothing" folder just sitting in the People directory with two additonal subfolders to house one item (won't say who it is, but they make great stuff), hair products showing up in Render Settings, and I'm going to need Google Maps to find my HDRIs now. I both laugh and cringe just thinking about what the folder structures of some customers who buy a lot more than I do must look like . ;)
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I've long wished for an editor with a styleguide to review the packages that are being created because they are increasingly worse. My runtime is awful, filled with content in the wrong directories for years now. I can only catch so much, and moving stuff breaks features, so it can be a drag to do it. There are also mispellings, typos, multiple 'character' folders readmes, read-me's, readme files. Hairs in the wrong categories, environements in props folders, multiple environement folders etc.
I do organize one folder. The People>G8M folder. For the rest, I just use self created categories. I can no longer keep up with the typos and errors, and QA doesn't seem to care, as long as the item shows up in the product view and other categories, where the file end up
it used to trouble me
now I just don't look as far too big and use Everything, DIM and my online content library search to find stuff
the naming conventions make it difficult though
it is indeed a mess
If I need to find something in my library that isn't searchable in one of the online stores...I am totally screwed, lol. Thank the powers that be for online readmes with file lists, so I can track down all my stuff.
It's easy to write an app that can check if there are folder paths in a zip that are not following the standard naming, and I wonder why DAZ haven't done it already for their QA.
DAZ-DEALS with it's links to Readmes is a godsend
I have manually installed my content, whether it is purchased or freebie, since the time of Poser 3. I have my filing system, especially when it comes to clothing (Basic, Casual, Costumes, Footwear, ect.) Venders are bad about these little Icons they use. I understand why, but the make it difficult when I'm scanning my directories, so, I don't install them. I am surprised at the number of artists who use automated installation and then don't know where their purchases went. But then again, I started using computers since my old Atari STE back in the early 80's and know my way around a hard drive. Windows 10 was made for people that have never looked into a hard drive before.
That's why I use the Products folder, where everything is in alphabetical order, and I don't have to go traipsing through capricious or disorganized folders. However, Daz is becoming lax in this area as well; so, I am sometimes forced to go wading through the Poser legacy folder system to get my content. When told about these shortcomings, tech support invariably replies that it is not considered a bug. Problem? What problem?
I wouldn't be too quick to blame the artists. Daz hasn't been very rigourous in enforcing conventions when it comes to structuring content. Almost anyone who prefers to manually organize their content follows their own bespoke taxonomy. Some of these Daz users often decide to become artists themselves, subsequently imposing that same taxonomy on others. What goes around comes around.
I cathegorise everything according to my custom system the moment I install it. I'd be completely lost otherwise.
I used to have mine organized then came the fire that destroyed everything I tried to reorganize everything until I realized that at my age I'd die before that happened so I have to live with DAZ's fling at the wall shotgun system
There's a reason that standards committees are established. Individuality has advantages, but when allowed to roam unshepharded falls quickly to chaos.
But, even standards committees fail to reign in the whirlwind of rapidly evolving chaos, or yield to commercial pressures. Witness the disaster that was the RS-232 data cable plug "standard", and oh, so many other product designs that fought it out in the marketplace before enough designs died a lingering pathetic death to yield one or two winners. Unfortunately, DAZ folder design sometimes seems like leaves in the wind.
This. 100%
I put stuff in my own libraries, and regularly find items in places I didn't expect.
... It is a shambles.
We didn't need a new version of DIM, but the folder structure sorting and enforcing.
That's fair that it isn't always the PA's fault, but I don't really understand why the really obvious ones aren't caught and fixed. For example, I installed a snake (I won't say who made it) through DIM and you'd assume it would have gone into the data/Animals folder. Nope, it's in data/Figures/vendorname/productname - and it's the only thing I've reinstalled thus far that's in that newly-created "Figures" folder.
DAZ original content does seem to be better organized (their characters, clothing, and poses are always where they should be in the People structure), so I just wonder what's going on in the testing process that's resulting in such confusing product placement. I still wonder why, after all these years, we can't move content within the recognized content directories, sign in through Studio, and have Content Manager scan the structure and update the item locations in the database.
You can open a read me from DIM (click the i icon next to the name) or DS (in a product view right-click>More Informration..., or if inside a product container just click the product thumbnail at top-left).
SnowSultan, we have a bit in common. I've been using DAZ content for around 20 years. All too often I get inspired and set off to do a project. I can't find something, and lose all my energy. Maybe weeks or months go by until I try again. I don't care about blaming people. I just want this problem fixed. I'd be happy to engage in a conversation about possible remedies.
That's assuming you actually own the product.
I install with DAZ Connect and manually populate the DAZ Studio Format with my own folders and file shortcuts dragged from the Smart Content Tab. To get third party products into the Smart Content tab, I create product metadata manually, create DIM installers with Content Package Assist, install via DIM and then create the shortcuts.
I can reorganize/rename/delete folders of shortcuts in the DAZ Studio Format library without breaking metadata. One can even intermingle Poser format products into the DAZ Studio Format library.
I do have to monitor product updates for product folder restructuring as it will break the shortcuts in the DAZ Studio Format library. In those situations, identified by the generic "missing icon" of the shortcuts, just delete and recreate the shortcuts.
And let me be clear, I'm not trying to say that DAZ is doing a lousy job or that it's impossible to find anything when organizing this way. I've made small attempts to use Smart Content over the years, but still tried to organize everything manually overall. Now I'm finally going all out with just letting installations go where they want, and I guess I'm a bit surprised at the lack of progress towards fixing the same problem that I ran into years and years ago.
I can only imagine what the data and runtime folders look like of the customers who've said they have 65 pages of purchases.
"I can reorganize/rename/delete folders of shortcuts in the DAZ Studio Format library without breaking metadata. "
Can you explain how you do this and does it still properly use Smart Content when done?
I'm hoping RiversoftArt comes up with something that can put content into Smart Content.
Just a question folks. Smart Content is nice but if you let DIM install everything on its own you'll get a total mess regarding file structure. So I like to move stuff to proper folders manually but that apparently breaks Smart Content. So is there a way to also manually update smart content to find the new locations?
I've elaborated on this method of populating the DAZ Studio Formats library here which includes a picture:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/4753916/#Comment_4753916
I've been waiting until I was near the ending of my frequent DAZ purchases so that they slowed to a trickle but I'm just going to methodically work through the Products section in the Content Library tag 0 - 9, A - Z to catagorize and assign product pieces to Smart Content.
In my case, I just want all male clothing to all males (I can manually subcategorize and assign sci-fi, 1940s, 1850s, miltary, formal, casual, work, sport, and so on) and all female clothing to all females and if the generations don't match then I do the work to fit them correctly myself but as it is now most good product I never see because SmartContent filters it out based on generations.
Unless it's not a generation character like, for example, the original Toon Generations.
...same here. I don't use Smart Content for two reasons, It'sjust one more layer and tends to take up too much display real estate when open and driven by a DB that is prone to crashes or corruption. Yes it's been a monumental job setting everything up since the drive crash a year and a half ago, but the whole organisation the lack of any naming convention standard, along with the manner in how the Poser runtime structure for older content is arranged (placing Mat files in the "Poses" instead of "Materials" folder for example) was just screwy. and made searching for content a real pain. I also have fair amount of content from other stores, as well as freebies, that doesn't include metadata, so it doesn't show in the Products Folder. As long as the Geometry, Data, and Texture files go in to their proper folders (which are "hidden" in the UI) that is all that matters. Props, Poses, and Textures can go anywhere. Whatever system you create, as long as the structure remains consistent, there should be no path errors when loading content.
You will probably regret it. I stopped catagorizing when I started using G8 lol. I recently decided enough was enough, took me a few months to redo all that mess. At least now I can find stuff without scrolling ginormous massive lists again lol.
Exactly. I leave the folder structure intact, but I categorize everything when installing in a structure that works for me.
I've never used Smart Content so I've removed that tab from my workspace. I put content into folders that make sense to me and navigate to that content via the simple Content tab. I don't use categories either, mainly because of a disaster when I spent days creating categories only to see them disappear after a DAZ Studio update. Never again.
Why are you looking at the data folder? Those aren't user-facing files. As long as the user-facing files have the correct paths it doesn't matter how the data folder is laid out.
He did.