DAZ - Create and organize your own Custom Content Categories
visionaryart38
Posts: 9
I saw a video the other day where a guy was saying that no one EVER organizes all their DAZ content.
Well...
I have.
It took me about three weeks.
In this video, you will see me creating and organizing DAZ categories in real time, moving and duplicating content categories, thinking, and fixing mistakes.
When you use this method, you are not changing any of the models' locations. It is like a virtual hierarchy that you create the way you want.
I found the way that DAZ Studio organizes content out of the box to be cryptic, so I did this, and it is more fun for me to find and utilize content now.
When I first started this, I tried to find ideas on how others had organized their categories, but could not find anything.
I made this video to give you some inspiration on how to set up your categories.
- Here is a Google Doc with all the categories typed out so you can copy and paste: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M-n2TnAyJiSBmoh73KDG7jIz3911BEOsHtMrZauylUI/edit?usp=sharing
Have an excellent day... 
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Comments
Having watched for 5 mins proved it was a good experiment and there's no problem at all for organizing assets as per the personal need and preferences.
I ever made a tutorial about that but it was in my native language.
Personally, I'd like to suggest trying to use Categorize by Product rather than by Files as the latter is pretty time-consuming.
Besides, it is not really necessary to create user-defined Categories / Sub-Categories out of "Default", may just put them under "Default". That'll make "trees" clean and fast in both Content Lib and Smart Content. Because no matter how you create your "Categories", they'll be marked as "IsVendor = false" (i.e. defined by users, not Daz / Vendors) in cms database, so there won't be any problem to products / items themselves.
Just for your reference. It'll be always up to your preferences eventually.
Hello Crosswind.
Thank you for the response...
I do not understand this:
"Personally, I'd like to suggest trying to use Categorize by Product rather than by Files as the latter is pretty time-consuming."
I may understand this partially:
"Besides, it is not really necessary to create user-defined Categories / Sub-Categories out of "Default", may just put them under "Default". That'll make "trees" clean and fast in both Content Lib and Smart Content. Because no matter how you create your "Categories", they'll be marked as "IsVendor = false" (i.e. defined by users, not Daz / Vendors) in cms database, so there won't be any problem to products / items themselves."
So...it would be beneficial to simply drag and drop my "Christine" folder with all of its contents into the "Default" folder?
Like this - Create a Category from... on a Product, it's faster (screenshot 1) because you don't have to drag Character presets, Material presets... one by one or batch by batch...
First create your Categories / Sub-Categories under "Default", then drag & drop as what you did in the video. Now you can drag & drop the Categories you created not under "Default" back to "Default", but better create a "Root Category" under "Default" first. Add some special character like "!", "{}", "[]" etc. for better sorting. (screenshot 2)
Then...this is not good (screenshot 3): - it'll be collapsed each time and if you click to dive in "Default", it'll be getting slower. (depends on the number of the products you installed...)
Hello Crosswind,
Thank you for all of that explanation, but, at this time, I still do not understand.
I will read it a few more times to see if I get it.
Something that really puzzles me - I can see initially, when the product is first made, because the artist may be using a completely separate, empty library to create in, but all the way through QA:
Example:
I just bought an outfit by 4Blueyes and, instead of going into People > Genesis 8 > Clothing, it has it's own freaking top-level "4Blueyes" category! Argh is That ever a PITA!!! That list is already unnecessarily way too long as it is!
Another Example:
I love collecting petipet products. Well, products that share the same series name aren't all found in the same category in the library! WTF?!!! When I was a PA, my QA person would have brought that to my attention before even looking at what was inside!
Thank the powers that be for DIM to help me find things, but I still often give up and just go for something else that I "Can" find instead - but that's paying someone to "Not" use their product - which is just plain unfair to me.
Daz 3d had the amazing opportunity to keep an eye on library organization back when they first created their own Library as opposed to keeping with a Poser runtime as it always was before. You'd think that the horrible mess that Freebie creators did to that over the years would have taught them to make sure that eveyone follows a "Code of Library Conduct"
But alas... now it's too late for risk of screwing up eveyone's content allocations and pangering the masses!
Anyway, I may look into taking the time to do this myself. But I fear that it requires the use of the Smart Content pane - and I just don't use that.
Okay... that was a rant. Please know that I understand that the artists and Daz 3d staff are Very Busy All The Time. I just wish that big, glaring problems like this would have been caught.
I do realize that there's a Smart Content pane - and that was probably created, along with the database, so that artists could litarally put their content anywhere they want.
But I like to locate my items by category in the Content pane so much more. That's the address that shows up in DIM, so I prefer to locate my content that way.
@Dartanbeck - Yes! This is a part of the reason why I made these categories because there was SO much stuff I could never find.
It caused a lot of wasted time and frustration when I really needed to be in a creative flow instead.
I also have Renderosity content.
It took me a loooong time to figure out how to manually install that correctly and even longer before I could find it in DAZ.
Now I find things in seconds and the flow continues.
Absolutely! Thanks for sharing your workflow!
Back up your database is my advice. I spent like a month doing that, then a week later the DB got corrupt and I started manually sorting and using library instead of content tab from then on lol
@TheKD said: "Back up your database is my advice. "
As long as you are talking about this...
Hamburger Menu --> Content DB Maintenance --> Export User Data-->This gives me a file called UserData_1.dsx
....then, yes, I back that up every time I make a change.
If there is something else I should also be doing, please let me know!
I have tried searching for an answer to this, but this post seems to be the closest I can find to my thoughts
Using "Dartanbeck's" example "I just bought an outfit by 4Blueyes and, instead of going into People > Genesis 8 > Clothing, it has it's own freaking top-level "4Blueyes" category! "
I wish to know can I change safely the outfit to People\Genesis 8 Female\Clothing\4Blueyes\Outfit
The one that annoys me the most is Anagord with MATVOufit not linked to the oufit in anyway, you would need to search for it.
I'm afraid you mean "a top-level 4blueyes' sub-folder in People\Genesis 8 Female\" ( People\Genesis 8 Female\4Blueyes\... ) rather than "a Category", right ? 'cause No PA uses vendor name as a "Category".
If so, yes you can but it'll take a couple of steps. The quicker way:
- Move the folder / files to the destination folder as you want. Then of course the metadata is lost...
- Go to "your Daz Library\Runtime\Support" folder , search a *.dsx file by using this product's SKU or keyword, then you'll locate the dsx file, sth. like : "DAZ_3D_71879_Awerie_Outfit_for_Genesis_8_Female(s).dsx"
- Open this dsx file with Notepad++, replace the "wrong path" with the correct one, like: replace "People/Genesis 8 Female/4blueyes" with "People/Genesis 8 Female/Clothing/4blueyes". Save it.
- Re-Import metadata with Content DB Maintenance. Done.
Another way is to uninstall the product, modify IM intallation package (restructure folders, modify Manifest file and DSX file), then re-install. That way is a bit cumbersome.
The 3rd way is to send a support ticket......
As for Anagord's "feature", yes, placing the texture add-on files under the main product folder would be much wiser and better... and more convenient especially for the users who only or mostly use Content Lib.