Can the store please standardize location of content
Serene Night
Posts: 17,673
I love the pa JDA HDRI, but come on NOW!
HDRI's now go into at least 5 different locations. It's getting a bit ridiculous Here are examples:
Ender Colony HDRI:
Light Presets>Render Settings
The Day after:
Presets>Render Settings
Cyberpunk HRDI
Render Presets>JDA_HDRI>Cyberpunk HDRI
Winter forest
Presets>Render Settings>JDA_HDRI\Winter Woodland
It's a mess! And camera settings in different places, sometimes with an underscore. Its just.... Not cool.
Post edited by Serene Night on
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Comments
Yes, please.
No more "Read Me", "Readme", and "Read Me's". Pick one and stick to it.
If I were a PA, I would be quite frustrated if my clients couldn't find my stuff. It also is poor advertising not to have it all in one place.
Couldn't agree more. I was just looking for a dforce item and couldn't find it under dforce in clothing. turns out it was in a folder with the PAs initials. Doesn't help that there are multiple ways to install and access content.
Oh yes, an item named dforce, but the item not having dforce in the name is a peeve. Or even an entirely different name!
Completely agree.
Ditto that for me lol. I have had to standardize my own, customize before install so I don't spend so much time looking for something I know I have in there somewhere! It takes a little time before install, but it feels like it saves way more time when I want to just make arts.
totally not cool and that's the same problem I have.
There is another comment thread in the forums about users have 20K+ products. They should amend their statement and acknowlege, "...but they can only find this week's purchases!"
Another thing (though I don't think it applies so much to this store) is PAs who make addon texture packs for another PAs product. Instead of putting them in the original item's folder, they create a completely separate folder elsewhere under their own name.
+ Trillion
One of the most irritating ideas.
You'd think they would have learned from Poser's original obfuscation of storage policy. I hated Poser primarily because of the confusing storage structures and moved to DAZ because it was originally more logical. However, DAZ has now multiplied that confusion several times and thrown-in a couple of buggy software organizational products to thoroughly stir the brew, forcing it to curdle easily. It's time to just stop it.
The problem arose in both Poser and DAZ Studio because they let the imates run the asylum. They didn't slap the hands of the PA's who had their own ideas about how to organize the data. And it's difficult to take the time or expense to go back through the library and correct things. They just keep attaching new fabric with dropped stitches into the already crumbling database. Makes no sense. No longterm thinking.
Yes, please. Standardize this stuff and please get rid of vanity folders. Vanity folders only work for vendors I buy from a lot, for everyone else it's "Who is this? What did I buy from them?" and a lot of extra work to find anything.
This is why I only install the base products that I always need... The install and uninstall the things that I use for single projects. It avoids all of the organizational and cross talk nonsense.
I concur. I keep saying Daz needs to hire a CAR (Chief Anal Retentive) to whip everything in shape. Implement and enforce sound standards for all new releases. Restructure back catalog in reverse chronological order.
+42 to all of the above.
C'mon Daz/PAs, get with the quality control program. If you insist on maintaining this sub-standard status quo then your content will be uninstalled and returned for a refund. Let's see how diminishing revenue affects your outlook. I don't need to waste my time addressing your inadequacies anymore!
That is the price of freedom. The freedom to choose one's own content structure/taxonomy and the urge to preach it to others.
Any rigid content structure would eventually become inadequate in addressing overlapping classifications. Stores like Steam have taken their own approach of having a flat top-level hierarchy and relying mostly on tags for deep classifications. And they have successfully implemented this on scale.
The field of software engineering has already addressed this problem decades ago within the context of multiple developers following their own conventions for folder structures and causing confusion while working in large team environments. Not by establishing standards, but by recommending conventions. A difference that is subtle, but important and can only be effective if implemented properly.
The same will be a big problem also in Parameters tab very soon.
I am of the mind that this is more the fault of daz's not enforcing any kind of stardardization for products. I mean we have PA's putting environments in the props folder and lets not even talk about the lights you are talking about. And don't get me started on vanity folders!
PA freedom has also cluttered my content hierarchy with duplicate folders like "Web Link"/"Web Links"/"Weblinks" and "Documentation"/"Documents" and blatant misspellings like "vehicels" and "enviornment". Even if PAs exercise their right to organize files how they want, standardizing the spelling is hopefully something we can agree on.
This is suddenly a problem NOW? ;)
I manually sorted my content for 20 years because of the lack of organizational standards, but it just started taking too much time. When I rebuilt my PC last time, I decided to use Connect/DIM and start using Smart Content to save time. Now I can't find ANYTHING unless I know the product name, so that time I was trying to save is now used up going through each of the Smart Content categories hoping the product is listed in one that remotely fits it's type.
It's absolutely ridiculous and always has been, but it's almost certainly not getting fixed at this point.
I think we have talked about this before Snow, and both felt pretty much the same on the subject. I still manually download and install all of my content because of all this. Daz seriously needs to step up and provide a clear and standardized template for content so the customers can install content and know that they can find lights or enviornment sets all in the correct folders instead of having to trust that smart content will find it for them.
While I agree and understand the frustration, there's really no way around it (speaking as someone who has done texture add-ons for products of other PAs).
For example, we created Bullwarg's Alternate Textures and, since we're only selling textures, then those need to be saved into People > Genesis 8 Male > Materials folder (which is the rule). If I were to try to put them somewhere else I'll be asked to change them by the testers. However, Bullwarg (the original product) is a character, so he's saved into the People > Characters folder. And since the original PA is selling both the character and textures, he can add his material folder into his character folder. But I, a different PA, cannot mess with his structure to add my own texture presets to it, since those are technically two separate products (plus imagine the nightmare of having let's say the original PA update their product and messing with the add-on product that had been saved inside that other folder. Or having users confused about "why they have less textures" than "x" user when they both own the base product).
BTW, that last happened to us when we did the Leg Prosthetic and it's texture add-on. A user had moved the add-on textures to the main folder and forgot about it. Later on, he mentioned that he'd only bought the main product but the texture add-on was included, causing a lot of anxiety for us and our tester (who we emailed almost in a panic thinking that our second product, from our very small catalogue, was being given away for free). ONLY to later find out that the user had forgotten he'd bought the add-on and had moved the presets. So, in effect, there was really no issue.
Even when the original product and the add-on are done by the same PA, I still have to follow the structure I'm detailing here. Heck, even with our burns/wounds I hate having to save the shaping presets into a different location than the rest of the product, but that's how testing expects it to be packaged. Of course, if you're not using Smart Content, you can always just move things into whatever folder structure you want (you just can't touch the data and runtime/texture folders to avoid breaking presets).
I actually do Not buy anything from JDA HDRI because of having heard about this mess with where it is installed and such. They have products I would like to have, but I refuse to buy things that will just piss me off and give me a headache.
There is other vendors I am not buying from because of that reason too. Perhaps in time it will change and installation locations will be better, but I'm not really holding much hope for that tbh.
That's the problem, and we don't blame you. Those textures should be in People -> Characters -> Bullwarg -> Materials because that's where anyone who goes to use Bullwarg would look for them.
Clothing texture sets are usually allowed in a sub-folder of the main product>Materials folder.
Thanks for stopping in to comment Fenix, I can understand your position as a PA that has made texture packs for other products, however it would be easy for daz to have texture pack vendors create a vanity folder within the main products materials folder. By doing it that way customers won't have to try and remember who made expansion packs for whatever set they are using.
Don't forget that everyone has opinions on where things go and how things are named! I know a lot of people prefer so-called vanity folders so they can find stuff they use a lot, for example. I Also personally move everything from environment to props when I manually install. So take with a grain of salt that everyone has different preferences on where and how things should be named. I do think consistency matters though!
+1
I think that is what the OP and those of us commenting here are after... Consistency when it comes to how things are set up.
I would have to agree with everyone here. Unless it's my own products I have no clue where to find things, because it isn't consistent. Like with our packs we asked customers what they wanted 15 yrs ago and that's what we did and still do. Sadly we can't do it anymore with DO's because Daz has their own locations they want stuff saved to because of smart content. Brokered packs your given a bit more leniency but not much more. Really it comes down to the testers and what they make you do or not do. I've complained time and time again because of the inconsistency. One pack we're told to do one thing and the next we're told the opposite and told its a change they put in place. I find it hard to believe that there are changes every week on where to save products or how to save products. The downfall is if you save something wrong your testing is drawn out by at minimum 3 days up to a week and if your on a deadline and have to have a pack in by xx date your kinda screwed. We've been hit with those last minute changes so many times I lost count. They need a standardized saving system for all products and strictly adhered too.
I don't see why this is hard for DAZ 3D management to get a grip on. No reciting of the alphabet or counting systems changes order on whim. What Kindergarten teacher asks her class to recite the alphabet but in a order she just made up and hasn't told anyone? And then rearranges it again the next day. And then allows the class to do the same and expect that the rest of the class "just knows" what those students' alphabetical organization whims are?