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How can I repoint DAZ scene files to new content location

StealthWorksStealthWorks Posts: 40
edited December 1969 in Daz Studio Discussion

Hi
I've successfully moved all my content from my local disk to an external drive. But, now when I go to open one of my original DAZ scene files it can't find any of the content. So, my figure looks like the screenshot below! I would have expected that if DAZ studio can't find a file it would ask for its location but instead it just tells me what it can't find and then displays the scene as per the attachment. I trued to open the DUF file in a text editor thinking I could just replace the base paths to by new location but the DUF file seems to be a binary file!

Can anyone tell me if there's an easy way to take an original scene file and edit it so that I ca point it to a new location where all the content is sitting?


Thanks in advance for any help

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Comments

  • JimmyC_2009JimmyC_2009 Posts: 8,891
    edited December 1969

    If you move any of your content libraries, you MUST tell DAZ Studio where the new location is.

    You do this by going to Edit > Preferences > Content Library > Content Directory Manager, and then entering the new path in BOTH DAZ Studio Formats AND Poser Formats.

    By the way, the DUF file is not in binary format, it is really just a ZIP (compressed) file, and you can open it with WinZip, or WINRAR or 7Zip or any of the zip file packages.

    See how you get on with that, and let us know if it works.

  • StealthWorksStealthWorks Posts: 40
    edited December 1969

    Hi
    Yes I had already done as you had suggested with the content directories but I was still getting the same problem. I had assumed that within the DUF file there must be paths set saying that the content was in the original locations which aren't there any more. However, when I changed the extension to zip and unzipped the contents there was a mixture of obj, mtl and other files in there. I opened all of them with textedit and although there were paths in some of these files they all looked like relative paths. So, I'm not sure now that paths are embedded in the DUF file.

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    edited December 1969

    StealthWorks said:
    Hi
    Yes I had already done as you had suggested with the content directories but I was still getting the same problem. I had assumed that within the DUF file there must be paths set saying that the content was in the original locations which aren't there any more. However, when I changed the extension to zip and unzipped the contents there was a mixture of obj, mtl and other files in there. I opened all of them with textedit and although there were paths in some of these files they all looked like relative paths. So, I'm not sure now that paths are embedded in the DUF file.

    Another case that may cause 'not found' errors is duplicate or nested content directories. It will look for the item in the first one it finds and if it isn't there, throw an error, instead of looking any deeper. So if you have a My Library > data > Daz > data...it will stop at the first data and not find anything in the Daz > data (unless it is very specifically spelled out and not a relative path...but that would mean that's exactly how it would have to have been saved).

    And in the case of items that have geometry files referenced, duplicate/nested Runtime directories are sometimes the cause.

  • StealthWorksStealthWorks Posts: 40
    edited December 1969

    HI
    No don't think thats my problem - I have checked and there are no nested directories. Also I removed all the DAZ folders from my local drive so its not the case that its finding a duplicate empty folder. I am running on a Mac so just wondering if things behave differently on a Mac maybe?

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 102,344
    edited December 1969

    Where is the Data folder now? What folders are selected as DAZ Studio content directories?

  • StealthWorksStealthWorks Posts: 40
    edited December 1969

    Hi
    The data folder is on my NAS, the full path is (i'm on a Mac)
    smb://DS215J.local/home/Archive/Graphics/Resources/Content Libraries/DAZ3D/DSContent/data
    and the screenshot below shows my content directories within DAZ Studio.
    I've also just noticed again that smart directories aren't showing thumbnails any more. When I reimport my metadata they all appear but after I restart my computer they all go again (and I have made sure before restarting Daz Studio that the drives have all been correctly mapped and that there are no duplicate drives there)

    I really hope some work will be done on the next version of studio to address this on Mac laptops - we have limited hard drives (unlike PCs) and it would be really good to be able to reliable store your content elsewhere

    Thanks

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  • TotteTotte Posts: 14,063
    edited April 2015

    StealthWorks said:
    Hi
    The data folder is on my NAS, the full path is (i'm on a Mac)
    smb://DS215J.local/home/Archive/Graphics/Resources/Content Libraries/DAZ3D/DSContent/data
    and the screenshot below shows my content directories within DAZ Studio.
    I've also just noticed again that smart directories aren't showing thumbnails any more. When I reimport my metadata they all appear but after I restart my computer they all go again (and I have made sure before restarting Daz Studio that the drives have all been correctly mapped and that there are no duplicate drives there)

    I really hope some work will be done on the next version of studio to address this on Mac laptops - we have limited hard drives (unlike PCs) and it would be really good to be able to reliable store your content elsewhere

    Thanks

    First off, you cannot map away the data directory only, specially not to a remote storage device using Samba that will come and go and create new mount points in /Volumes every time it reappears again. It's not a problem to have your content folder on a NAS, not for DAZ Studio, but the way Apple handles lost connections to remote devices will be a nightmare for you, specially using smb (Samba(, I woudl recommend sharing using AFP over IP or NFS. And where did you place the thumbnails? I guess on the NAS. Everytime smb loses connection a new mount point is created in /Volumes, and as you are using zeroconf networking, those dropouts are quite a lot.

    So, use a static IP address for the NAS, use a less connection dropping sharing protocol, like ntfs or afp-ip, and do not try to share just a small portion of the content.

    Post edited by Totte on
  • StealthWorksStealthWorks Posts: 40
    edited December 1969

    Hi,
    I never realised that connecting using SMB was a problem. I'll try connecting via AFP as you say and see if that makes any difference
    thanks again

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