Meta Data - it's getting worser and worser
Hurdy3D
Posts: 1,058
Hey guys,
do you also expierence a qualility drop in the last weeks?
The meta data qualility is getting worser and worser and DAZ seems not much interested into fixing it.
Lot of Thumbnails are missing and a lot of figures and props are in the wrong category.
I reported in the past some of this issues via ticket, but there's not happening much.
I install via DIM.
Anyone else such issues?
Edit: Added some examples
missing thumbnails.png
1070 x 790 - 443K
wrong category.png
496 x 340 - 83K
wrong name missing thumbnail.png
280 x 247 - 42K
Post edited by Hurdy3D on
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Comments
Don't use it. I make my own folder structure and manually copy the icons in. So in effect I have two libraries attached. Daz and Library, the latter being my own structure and the one I use and the former being whatever gets installed. Anything based on meta-data that isn't rigorously policed (by Daz) is going to end up a mess (thermodynamics). The default Daz folder structure is a mess so there's that too. Then there's 3rd party things that almost never have "correct" metadata.
Yeah, I've reported a couple of metadata problems as well and nothing came of it.
Once I reported a meta data issue on an old product a year ago. Still not fixed.
"Things" are being fixed - I had several of my bug reports resolved at the end of this week, and I see updates fixing things I hadn't reported. Please do report these issues so they can be addessed in due course.
If you can fix these meta data issues, I did a ticket a year ago... still not fixed:
#300756
Maybe you can fix it?
It doesn't make sense for me to report meta data issues, if I've the feeling that nothing is happening.
Maybe Richard's "things" are getting fixed, but, like you, mine are not. For months, every report I make about metadata errors gets put on the bug tracker. They are not being fixed. I think there are at least two other recent forum threads on this same subject (new products with bad metadata). (I started one of them.) I think that indicates that the situation is truly getting worse and customers are bothered enough to post about it.
One of the last times I sent in a ticket about incorrect metadata, was told that metadata for products below a certain sku (can't recall teh one, but it was older products) are not going to be done/fixed. So I gave up on smart content/metadata and went back to teh content library.
Maybe we should send our meta data issues in the future directly to Richard, if he has some better connections to get this fixed
Just a note to say that since the lockdown, users to Daz have increased - as a result, the tickets coming in have also increased over and above the usual 'busy' times. So please just be patient as the team work as fast as they can on tickets.
Things are having to be prioritised too, so yes, some newer tickets may be resolved before older ones.. depening on the nature of the issue.
LOL, "worser and worser". Like English grammar gets somehow gets "worser". Worser isn't even a word.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/de/worterbuch/englisch/worser
That may explain the slow ticket progress in the last time, but it's not an excuse for the bad QA. The QA fails in the last time regulary, in terms of meta data and product images. In the past these issues where an exception. Now they appear regularly on new products and are only fixed, IF they get fixed.
Whilst I also noticed that it is also true to say that I knew what they meant.
When I saw it I thought "Another Scot" :) seems to be used a lot in the West of Scotland :)
I have been given SKU limits twice: 17000, and a few years ago, 30000 (?) I think.
In Technical Help I think someone mentioned QA testing on 'clean computers' or a computer with every product loaded. That got me thinking, since Daz employees had to go home to work for Covid, do they have access to a computer with the full library loaded or a clean computer? Or is this something only availabe at the office? Could the seemingly failure of front end QA be from the lack of resources they have at home to do all their checks?
Though making sure thumbnails are included, paths are written correctly, and some of the basic, repetitive errors are double-checked for prior to packages are placed on the sales pages. Like a week or two before.
I am so glad that I don't use meta data or smart content, I just download everything and custom install everything into my content folder. My clothing is broken up into catagories like Dresses, Shorts, Pants, Sci-Fi and so on, sure its a little more work on the front end but now I know if I want a swimsuit I can go to that subfolder and all my swimwear is there. This way I can fix when one of the vendors puts an envio0rnment set into the props folder I don't ahve to search high or low to find it in the environment folder it should have been in in the first place.
Well I was a smart content-denier myself for a long time. Just recently I made the change and never looked back. I even us Content Wizard to add smart content to all stuff from other sites. There I usually change the ZIP to also have the folder structure I prefer. With DAZ content I no longer bother where it is installed to as smart content usually helps me to find whatever I want quite fast. And with custom categories you can even sort the clothing to your likings.
I am not a smart content denier, I just have no use for it. I started out using poser and then switched over when G2 came out and I learned to do this for my poser content so I saw no reason to stop doing it. Seeing all the issues people have with smart content and meta data, it was the right choice for me.
Sometimes I wonder if some people have an entirely different set of content than I do. I've never seen any solid evidence that Smart Content actually works.
Works goodly for me.
I've started to do this as well because even using the content library, there is no consistency with file structure, even with the same PA more often than not. The only issue I've encountered is when I try to search for something. So for example, if I type the word "pumpkin", expecting to pull up every prop that contains the word "pumpkin", I will get broken links on the results that return for any items that I have moved outside of the original file structure. That being said, when I move stuff manually, I never move the data folder. I only move the props or environments folders, etc. I'm not sure if there is a way around the broken links.
Another issue is that if I move stuff outside of the original file structure, if the product is updated, I have to now go in and wait for the "update" to pop up in DIM and then go and download manually and paste over my customized install to get any updates. Becuase of this and because of the above, I've started to go back to the original file structure and just surf the content library like an lost tourist when trying to find something, lol.
In an ideal world, everything would be perfect first time.. and we wouldn't even need QA.. or CS for that matter :)
Yeah I don't touch the data fiole or texture files, but the rest of them are all in custome foldewr setups. All of my envirornments, props, and character clothing and poses are all in cutom folder set ups. So if I am looking for a sword wielding pose, I have a folder for that, same as pinup poses and heroine poses. And I never have to worry about the smart content being worng or dealing with broken meta data. :)
Smart Content either works or it doesn't. If metadata is wrong, then Smart Content doesn't work. I'm going to give this another chance. I get my new computer in a few days. I will use DIM to install everything automagically. Then I will see just how well Smart Content works. I've done this before, and found Smart Content to be very disappointing.
I put in a ticket nearly a year ago to report that some of the male clothing is showing up when female characters are selected, and so far, it hasn't been fixed. There's one female outfit showing up for the males. I sometimes wonder if, when they're setting up the metadata, could they just be using copy and paste and foretting to check the gender of the character it's for? Or they're just keying it in by memory and forgetting what character it's for. I know accidents happen, we all goof once in a while, but this issue has been happening a lot. I know there's a way to fix it yourself, but even though I've been working with DAZ Studio for years, I just don't know how to fix metadata. I'm afraid I'll mess it up worse.
I think you will be disappointed. Particularly, if a product supports both G3 and G8 or both male and female then, even if you click on a figure, it will show both the G3 and G8 and male and female products together even though your figure is only one of them. And some of the icons have no indication of which figure it's for. They all look the same.
And when I go to the material settings, even if I specifically select the IRAY category, I get two copies of every material setting. Two of material 01, two of material 02, and so on.
No support for older items whatsoever. No easy way to manually add items that didn't have metadata in the first place.
And blaming this on the pandemic doesn't explain tickets being left open from a year ago. This seems to be the worserest things have ever been.
The file containing the metadata is quite self-explanatory, at least when you read a handfull of them, but if you should fix a large number of them by yourself... What's the point...