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
I was surprised when I discovered Dasan 8 was female.
Nowadays you never know... Ducking for cover
I'm fairly new here and initially just used the Smart Content tabs to double click and install the content. It seemed the most obvious to me. Over time I've used DIM, installed the content myself etc... I still prefer to use the Smart Content tab but it's been more and more problematic over the past months for me and even now I look back and find something I forgot I'd bought already. My Library is 95% Gen8.
Thanks for the info, NylonGirl. I'm trying to resist any new tests or installs until my new computer arrives. But then I get antsy.
If the situation gets any worserer, we're going to have to get some Worcestershire sauce.
Same... Reading in disbelief how everybody is continuously re-downloading their content in order to "fix" the problems with content not showing up.
Another reason to avoid them both like the plague.:)
This metadata issue is an obstacle to our productivity. I have more than 10 metadata errors. Submitting a ticket that will be on queue will not help the need for present times. Daz needs to correct this, otherwise it demotivates customer and lots of time wasted. Bad for business.
I'm looking over my DAZ Content in preparation for getting the new computer next week. Who am I kidding?! DAZ splatters our content recklessly, leaving us to figure a way to find anything. Smart content?! I'd laugh if I weren't so bored.
I don't understand why studio has to install parts of itself all over your computer like a virus, that is why I install studio to my main drive but my content library is on an external. I don't use DIM or any of the other 'installers' that studio offers for this reason. I prefer to know exactly where all my programs are going and where I can find them when needed. For those of you that love smart content and meta data and it works for you, that is awesome but from the sounds of it the majority of people have more issues with it than it is worth.
How is your knee? Mr Ron .
Bringing this subject up might have been better accomplished in a polite fashion, with minimal errors in grammar. While meta data problems are an issue, it seems a minimal one compared to other problems. Many of which I've seen fixed over time. Which is not bad considering the low cost and generally high quality of the product.
DIM allows you to specify where the content goes too. Daz central uses a single master folder, on a drive of the user's choice, for everything that has an option.
Same-same.
I install via .exe (and when I had a Mac, .dmg) onto a dummy directory, andshovel over the immutable parts to their counterparts in my external content directory. That third bit, the .duf stuff, I place into their specific and highly-organized directories. Say I get a clothing set - a dress, say- called Snicklefritz. The "My Library/data/*" and "My Library/Runtime/*" stuff merges into their respective places in my content directory. The "My Library/People/Genesis 3 Female/CoolVendorDude/Clothing/Snicklefritz" ends up being "My Library/People/Genesis 3 Female/Clothing/Dresses01/Snicklefritz" ("Dresses 01" can become any number as the collection grows, because for ease of browsing I limit each of these directories to like 40 products.)
I learned this from back in the days of Poser (and to be honest? DS is WAY easier to organize stuff in!)
Anyrate, the overarching directory ("D:\DAZ 3D") is on a separate disk on the laptop, and I manually back it up to an external disk besides (about once a week or so.) This way if anything fails, I always have a fallback, and it's a simple matter of telling DS to use it as my DS Content directory.
For me, instead of moving folders around and possibly breaking things like the search function, I just edit the metadata file (*.dsx in the /Runtime/Support folder) with a text editor (Notepad++ can do mass search and replace on files). Depending on the amount of items in the product, it takes me a few minutes and then I reimport the metadata file into DS. Since it is done in the metadata file, if the smart content database gets corrupted, I can just reset the database and reimport the metadata with all my custom categories. My categories aren't in the /Default smart category to keep things seperate from DAZ's categories. I get the best of both worlds where I can completely reinstall on a new system and then copy the smart content from a backup and reimport the metadata or I can get updates without worrying about hunting down files to delete, etc. It doesn't take any more time than moving physical files around in a custom file setup (which I originally started with before moving to the smart content path because of how much content I have). I also create DIM zip files with the Content Package Assist and create my own smart content files for anything I purchase from a vendor outside of DAZ (Rendo, Hivewire, etc.). I didn't go the "user data" route because with ~20,000 products from DAZ and another 4,000 products from other sites, trying to export the user data ended up with many GB user data support files that were easily corrupted. One suggestion with smart categorization, if you have items in the Lost and Found category, get that cleaned up as soon as possible. I found early on that the more stuff there was in the Lost and Found category, the slower the Smart Content responsiveness got.
Though really it is what a person is comfortable with. Whether it is moving physical files around, using the categorization in DS, or changing the smart content *.dsx file, there really is no perfect way for this. Every method has its drawbacks and issues.
Chatjd
Yes, doing things right from the beginning will save you a lot of time and trouble in the long run.
They contain a lot of elements, which ones are relevant for editing/fixing?
This is exactly how I feel - I love love loved Smart Content when I first started using it...until the metadata errors. I got so fed up with "lost and found" and not being able to figure out complicated products that you have to use in a certain order, that I gave it up.
If metadata was correct - if all the old RDNA products had their metadata corrected as we were told at the beginning they were going to do, then I'd go back to Smart Content. Simple errors that are fixed quickly when pointed out are fine - but how a new product gets half its files categorised as "lost and found" was beyond me. And if we, the user, could correct the metadata ourselves and have it stick, then that would be a plus too.
The most common errors are path and filename errors (don't match the package contents), missing or wrong content type, missing or wrong compatibilities, missing or wrong default category, and a couple others (object compatibilities, support assets, or even just completely missing asset entries). I guess most of the entries could be relevant...
But that doesn't fix all the vanity folders or environment sets being put into the props folder. Along with fixing the smart content and metadata there is no consistancy when it comes to directory folders. Some PA's use a vanity folder, some don't these are all things that daz should have been caught in QA before release, instead of waiting for customers ti find the issues and report them. There have been several threads about broken smart content and metadata but it never seems to get taken care of.
OK. Was thinking that an editor that just picked up the relevant entries for editing might help, but if there are so many I'm not sure if that's a good idea. Where you get the correct data is also a problem. For path and file names you could scan the zips or the Content/Connect Libraries to find them, and then maybe auto-correct them but for the rest I'm not sure.
Vanity folders are one thing, but the most annoying ones are texture sets, which are placed under another vanity folder, nowhere near the garment it was meant for with a name that has no connection to the said garment and a thumbnail that gives no clue as to which garment it was meant for... I guess some PA:s still haven't gotten over the Poser "logic"... Just another example and reason for installing content manually...
The vanity folders are something that daz could easily address by instituting a policy either saying everything will have a vanity folder or nothing will. It is that easy. The same could be done with the metadata and smart content. Make sure everything has it and not approve anything that has incorrect information.
As a former poser user I take a bit of offense to that, their logic has nothing to do with previous programs, and for the record studio used to use the same layout pre version 4.0.
Smart Content is supposed to work. It's is a feature Daz promotes, and when it doesn't work, that's a problem that needs to be addressed.
They also promote power pose but it is broken as well, but that is another topic all by itself.
This.
DIM does not allow you to choose specifically where to install your content. It allows you to throw the entire jumbled mass into one or several folders, if you're willing to spend the time. I want to Make Art. I don't want to spend countless hours searching for content, editing metadata, etc. The idea of making content installation easy got distorted into "Smart Content," or some such nightmare.
Bamber, I never set a date for my knee surgery. I plan to hold off the surgery until I manage to move nearer to my family. Everything will be much easier when I move closer to the city. In the meantime, my new PC should arrive in a few days.
#metoo. I do precisely this. My Daz library is a mess (default install). The reorganised alternative library is nice and clean (I think perhaps I have some kind of OCD where I have to categorise things...).
LOL I guess that makes two of us. Glad to hear I am not the only one that does this, my brother uses studio as well and he gives me all kinds of crap for it. But I can find things a lot faster than he can. :D