Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
To backup your custom category information, copy this file to another safe place (I usually copy it to a completely different physical hard drive and a removable usb drive) every so often (I usually do this after I've categorized a bunch of new stuff):
C:\<main daz studio content runtime>\Runtime\Support\UserData_1.dsx
The drive letter and the exact name of the root runtime directory/folder will be sepecific for your setup.
Copy your saved version of that back to this location if your categories get lost, corrupted, etc.
nemesis10, I will not reinstall anything. I will not troubleshoot. That job should go to DAZ or the PA's. I have, however, rediscovered how to work with Categories. I am excited. I can save a lot of disc space because I won't feel tempted to make duplicate collections and rearrange files and folders.
Partly because I come fome a scientific career and partly because i know people are artists, I think the wise man knows his tools. I'm not saying you have to be able to write code but a good working knowledge of how your Smart Content works would have saved you much work. When I was grad school, the most memorable talk I went to was a professor who perhaps had too many cocktails but he talked about the nature of science. He began with a story about teaching high school science teachers about how to teach science. He put them in groups with a bettery, a wire, and a light bulb, and waited to see how long they took to figure out that they had to pair with another group so that they would be able to borrow another wire so they could make a complete circuit. He then said that the world was magic for most people; they flip a switch and don't have a clue about how much infrasture is required to make the switch, the wires behind the switch, the device that is switched on or off, on and on. He said it was our task to learn the "deeper" knowledge and that a PhD is not a doctorate in Science but docterate in the philosophy of Science.
Daz3d's products aren't like a microwave diner that you pop in the oven, press the Make Art button, and render. It is closer to an art store where they provide you with the canvas, paints and brushes but you have to prep the canvas, mix the paints, and condition the brushes. So, do you have those files; if you don't Smart Content will never work.
yeah people who think it is too much effort to try something miss out in so much from life.
I still remember when I thought I had no use for computers.
I have learnt an incredible amount over the last 12 years since I got one, my 3D hobby and DAZ has played a large part in that.
Never ever play the old fuddyduddy card in the game of life, the only one you will pick up in exchange is increasing dementia.
And this is the second reason because I erase the compatibility when I redoing metadata, if an important amount of products don't have compatibility information, using this feature in the workflow is a waste of time.
Even without this feature smart content is good to use: nested folder show all the files in the children folders, then custom categories can be visualized easily, multiple categorization can be displayed in the same place, product can be linked with the product page and big pictures can be linked, filtering tags with keys, add tags to files (if metadata is saved, tags are saved permanently as userwords and can be reloaded in case of loss).
Here is my perspective. If a product is defective, and 100 people fix it themselves, it is a collosal waste of time. In a former job, I worked with a small staff of people. We handled the voting records of 250,000 people in the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota. We had to sort the records to fit the political divisions of the city: Ward, Precinct, etc. I helped my fellow employees modify our sorting efforts to save a lot of time. DAZ needs to totally revamp the way their content is assembled. The first step (as others stated) would be to provide a list of guidelines concerning product names, organization of files & folders, etc. Eliminate all "vanity" folders as well.
As of today, I believe my compromise is to keep the "default" DIM installation, and work with Categories. It's still far from a comprehensive solution.
No problem GiGi, thanks for the information anyway. :)
Divamakeup, glad it's working! I've only tried a few organizing a few animals this way so far, but I made a completely separate structure aside from the main Studio content folders so the folders aren't combined with the default installation ones. I'm not 100% sure if these shortcuts will show up in Smart Content yet, but I really just plan on using Smart Content for poses and to keep track of products I haven't installed yet.
Ron, you might want to look at the tutorial I posted on the previous page based on Lindsey's instructions. It lets you organize manually without really moving anything, and it shouldn't be affected by any updates like Categories sometimes are.
Having been here since Daz3d's store was created, there will be some point where Daz3d overhaul everything and change the content management (probably not in the way that you expect since artists tend to like things like vanity folders and don't like theoretical changes that interfere with their workflow and cashflow) and there will be a large contingent that hates it because that is the nature of people. You should pick the method that works for you since you live with the results. I'm not sure the forum gives a particularly accurate measure of the number who have problems with the content system since we tend to get the most "vocal"; I compare it to those people who are all over the forum about how they think that the store has too much scantware but never seem to buy the products that are more more modest and with flat shoes enough to push them into the best seller easy money maker strata. Talk tends to be cheap. However, this is beside the point. For you, this product is defective so people like me who have had little problem with Smart Content even with my hundreds of pages of product are beside the point. I would suggest not to make hard promises about what system you will you will commit to until you stick to one. A long time ago, there was a tv show called Talk Soap which was a comic news show about tabloid and celebrity news. The host at the time, Greg Kinnear, introduced a story about a man who was getting married for the 34th time. He turned to the audience and said "You know, after the 21th divorce, I would have thought that maybe it's me that is the problem". So i am hoping that you will achieve a system that you will live with or decide that you are spending too much time organizing. I occasionaly browse my product library page if I need to find that perfect product from the days of Michael and Victoria 1 for example. in any case, I hope you do get a modicum of enjoyment creating and rendering.
Even if DAZ reorganises its content at one point and does a bang-up job, I highly doubt this will include older items (especially Gen 4) and it definitely wouldn't include freebies and items from other stores. There will always be content management issues with DAZ, I think.
the simplest solution is the one I hope they never implement
vault all the old stuff
fix or remove the newer
I want to be able to use all my stuffs I collected flawed or not
I fear DAZ studio 5 will bring this change
the click and load art crowd pretty much demand it
I don't. It sucks.
I like the DIM / manual system I have.
Stuff I'm working on use regularly I just copy to a folder I have for that purpose; I only copy the customer facing files, and remove them when finished with or I find I rarely use them.
As I don't render in Studio any more, Studio is a glorified asset management mess system
I hear ya. I gave up on Smart Content sometime last year - so many problems with that, including things like products where you have to use them in certain steps and that not being shown in Smart Content. I still install via DIM, then I just right click after it's installed to see where it wnet (and boy, there are a LOT of errors in folder names and where things go), and then I move it to where it should be (put it in "props" instead of "environments" or vice versa etc), rename folders if I have to (obviously not anything in data, or textures etc) and I just use the content library now. Can still be a bit of a pain sometimes if I'm looking for a certain something I know I have but can't recall the name of it, but I find it better than Smart Content and generally, I do know where something is.
Mum's 92.
She checks her emails; looks at amazon for her kindle and just cause she likes looking (as well as other stores); she uses the media centre part of it I set up to record programs. She uses Skype and is happy enough copy and pasting stuff in it for me to look at if she has questions.
She started doing this at a very spritely 72 - although Skying she only started last year (I think, unless the one before that).
There is a way to save changes for individual products in one click,
but looks like it’s broken, because not all information is written. I send a ticket, but after the answer, I don’t think my explanation of the problem was understood (No good english from me as can you see).
This is what I do as well.
I have finally made the best peace possible for me. I just go through all the content, and make simple categories. For people, example categories are: Genesis 2 Female: Characters, Clothes, Expressions, Hair, Poses, Props etc. I don't break things down into particular types of clothes, etc. This Category system allows me to get around "vanity" folders, etc. My main computer is the iMac. I also have a Hewlet Packard notebook that I use when sitting on the recliner chair. Right now, I'm concentrating on getting the HP Windows 10 notebook setup. I will eventually get my knee replacement surgery, and might take my notebook computer with me. That way I can occupy myself with "making art" in the hospital.
I won't argue your point or logic, but I will point out that DAZ still hasn't bothered to go back and revise all of the older store catalog pages with simple notices on pre-iray products that read "3DL only" on older light and shader sets, or "3DL textures may require adjustment for Iray users" on older models, despite Iray having been the default renderer for DS for over 5 years now, nor have they cleaned up the rats nest of weird product bundles and mangled store pages dating from the RDNA buyout, substantially updated revised the user documentation except in the form of notes in a decade, or fixed a store that has had constant issues since launch. With that in mind, what do you think the odds are of DAZ actually tackling anything that requires the investment of time, labor and dollars that cleaning up all the of DS' categorization issues would almost certainly require?
Cybersox, I totally understand and agree with you. I've decided tp abandon Categories, once again. I will stick to my plan of moving "facing file folders." This job will be much easier because I had decided to keep all the old content separate from the Genesis stuff. When I get new content, I'll install it manually.
...I still remember wondering how could I ever fill up a 20 MB hard drive when all I did was create WordPerfect text files.
...I do the same, then move the library and/or runtime components into a more logical format in Windows, leaving Data, Geometries, and Textures where they are as again those are not seen by the user. Yeah it's a bit or work at install but once it's done, it's done and unless the HDD goes south, I don't have to worry about a database missing items or becoming corrupted .
The concept is correct. I always keep the Smart Content tab on the far right and the Daz Studio Format library to the left of it. When I populate the Daz Studio Format library shortcuts, I move the Daz Studio Format library tab to the pane with the Viewport temporarily and move it back after I'm finished.
Personally, I prefer to keep the shortcuts in folders by product, just like DIM does, and into the main predefined base categories, Animals, People, Props, Environments, Shaders, Lights, etc., but fine tune as needed. For the most part mimicking the DIM folders sans vanity folders. I also keep the folder name the same as the actual DAZ product name. I was suprised recently when I had to install a dForce clothing product what wasn't installable with DAZ Connect and the folder name didn't include dForce as the first word in the product's name. Others may choose to populate their Daz Studio formats library so they can easily locate their content.
What's nice is if you decide to reorganize, you can move folders around to your hearts content and not worry breaking metadata.
If users have installed their content with DIM, there is nothing from preventing them from creating a new custom library in the Daz Studio Format library and start building that library with shortcuts from the Smart Content Tab. I seem to be drawn to content organized by products as opposed to adding custom categories.
I'm toying with the idea of populating my Daz Studio Format library with DAZ Bundled products. Just create a folder "Bundles", create a subfolder with the Bundle name. Since I already have the product folder of shortcuts created, just copy the individual product folder of shortcuts into it's bundle folder. I've created similar product groupings with the Carnival, Dream Home and Curious products. One can do a themed library such as Space, Fantasy, 50's, Victorian, Zombie. What can I say, I'm retired and dependentless and have nothing but free time.
PS: I'm not a PA anywhere, but thanks for the plug... lol
Oh, I thought you made the dForce dynamic hair sets, lol...sorry, I'll fix that before I post it. Thanks for the information and again for this excellent idea. I'm mostly keeping the same structure too, just renaming some products and keeping others together (like facial hair) so I don't have to look through a million character folders to find a beard. ;)
Much appreciated!
You should be able to do this in (Windows) Explore too. Using Symbolic links (sometimes called symlinks, known as soft links on other platforms).
This method will definitley also work on the Poser runtime side of Content (I'm sure many of you still delve into V4s wardrobe), and can link complete folders.
The Daz content dji file method does have some advantages over it though.
I only use DIM to install Daz Studio, everything else I install manually.
I do not use Smart content and am happy with my Content Folder where I can find everything quickly.
I have my fav. Artists in their own folders in Clothing, Poses, Props...
If I had to search for content so long that I lost interest in a project, that would tell me something.
Got kind of a weird question now, I've installed a bunch of products using DIM and set up custom shortcuts in my own folder structure, everything seems fine. However, everything in Smart Content is displaying as being uninstalled. This is probably because I reset the database, which is fine too, but there are a couple of things I don't understand.
- If DIM detects the content as being installed but Smart Content doesn't, can Smart Content be pointed to the installed product without having to reinstall it again? Updating metadata does not work.
- If I reinstall content directly through Smart Content while DIM is showing the content as already being installed, are two copies of the product being installed in different locations? Or does the Smart Content installation just overwrite the older DIM one?
I'm to the point where I really don't care if Smart Content works now, I just don't want to have to reinstall 4000 products for the sole purpose of being able to drag the thumbnails from the Smart Content panel over to my Content Library in order to make a directory structure I like.
DAZ Connect installs everything into one folder as defined in the Content Directory Manager. Within that folder, there is a folder for each product containing all of a product's files. If your system is not recognizing your previously installed DAZ Connect products, I would check the DAZ Connect Library path in Content Directory Manager is pointed to your DAZ Connect install folder. Typically the path ends in "<Your Drive\Your Path>\My Daz Connect Library"
If the product is installed via DAZ Connect AND DIM, you are installing twice and taking up twice the file space. DAZ Connect in the DAZ Connect install folder mentioned above, and DIM into the DAZ Studio Format library folder structure.
Ideally I would stick with DAZ Connect or DIM to avoid installing twice. You can tell which products are installed with DIM as the product icon on the Smart Content tab will be COLORED but the "Installable with DAZ Connect" circle with the arrow point down will be in the top right corner of the icon. Once a product is installed with DAZ Connect, that circle/arrow marker will disappear.
Edit: Added a picture of my Content Directory Manager settings as an example.
DIM keeps a database based on manifest files kept in a folder with the path Daz 3d> InstallManager > Manifest Files; if this is empty then DIM can't tell what you installed. Smart Content looks at a folder with the path Content>Runtime>Support. I don't think you want to install through Smart Content using Daz Connect since that will produce duplicates. I think what you want to do is make sure Content Manager is pointed to the right folders so that Smart Content can see the files which come in 3's: files that end in .dsa,.dsx, and a jpg which is used for the product icon in Smart Content.
I was told by DAZ never to install using both Connect and DIM, it can cause problems (which I had because I'd done it).
Connect/Smart Content has its own library, default name is "My Daz Connect Library", I'm not sure what the default path (some place at the system drive) is though as I've moved mine. You can see the paths in DS Content Directory Manager (see screenshot).
DIM installs to the "normal" library ("My DAZ 3D Library"), but I'm not sure if and in that case how it interacts with / installs files to Connect, and vice versa.
Thank you Lindsey, Nemesis, and Taoz, I will look into some of those issues a little later today. Thanks for reminding me about what the circle/arrow icon meant, that was confusing me a bit as to what was really installed (I thought it meant metadata needed updating). I'll try to go through files and keep everything installed through DIM.