DS4.9: Not perfect, but also hardly as bad as some claim

ShelLuser

Hi gang!

I've been a Daz user for quite some years now; started with Daz Studio ("DS") and eventually worked myself up and expanded my set with Bryce and Hexagon, giving myself access to what I refer to as "The Daz Trio". I'm using DS mostly in a hobby based fasion but sporadically also in a semi / small commercial approach (for example: making contents to be used on websites). What I liked best about Daz over the years is that it gives me the impression that I am in full control and at a more interesting prize than the competion. Sure.. When looking back one could argue that I spend almost the same amount of money (in total) in comparison to buying myself a full package (say Poser for example). Thing is... That would have gotten me a default library of items to use, which I'd probably still want to expand on. With Daz I may have ended up spending the same (if not a little more ) in comparison, it also left me with a library which is fully custom tailed to my likes and needs. That also accounts for something in my book.

Daz Studio 4.9

Yesterday I finally upgraded to DS 4.9, really worrying and wondering what to expect. I read plenty of horror and doom stories; how customized categories would suddenly disappear, how the workflow became totally different, how you had to log on every time you started DS, etc, etc. Some true, some not and some are in my opinion based on first impressions. So because I still hold DS in such high esteem (it's the only 3D environment I work with) I figured I'd write up my own experiences, maybe it can help some of you.

Important: We're working with software here, and highly customizable software at that. Which means that my experiences can differ from yours. My setup is highly customized. The Daz Install Manager ("DIM") for example downloads its packages to a directory on D, then installs them to my main Daz library which also resides on D. The Daz software is also installed to D. And finally my user library and all my projects reside on C (the regular 'C:\Users\Peter\Documents\Daz 3D\Studio' stuff).

The upgrade

The upgrade itself went smooth as silk. I merely fired up the DIM, let it install all the packages as usual and that was that.

As you can see above it downloaded the packages which I still have available (I always back those up on my external harddisk) and the first impressions of DS 4.9 are good.

First impressions

Quite good! My main concerns after reading so many stories were two-folded: I spend a lot of time in the last weeks to fully customize my library and also imported / added older contents into the Smart Content section (like the Helligator, one of the first figures I bought and which taught me a lot about both posing and the whole content library (it didn't get automatically added to the smart content pane)). Would I really loose all that hard work? I can put any concerns somewhat at ease: DS does not simply trample over your customizations:

DS 4.9 and as you can see my 'Figures' section looks quite different from yours. Because I heavily utilize the Genesis model (where Genesis, the first generation, is actually still my all time favorite) I decided to group them all together so that it would be easier on me to quickly select a starting model. As you can see this custom setup was fully kept in place. Speaking of that Helligator up there: I manually added that to the 'Creatures' section, and its still there. I also have a large collection of dinosaur figures (category: Default\Figures\Animals\Dinosaurs) and rest assure: no issues.

However...

There are some caveats. When I went over my own work (which I categorized under my own (site) name) I noticed that the Smart content pane had added several entries for projects (scenes) which I had already removed some time ago (I used the option 'show in content library' in the smart contents pane and from there I deleted the files). That left me with an entry showing an ugly icon. So I figured it might be a good idea to clean up my library. I used the 'Content DB Maintenance => Remove orphaned file references' option and I wish I hadn't. Because after that all my customized entries were gone. The categories themselves still exist (which is of some help) but all file entries have been reset. Even though, and this annoys me a little, those were not orphaned entries. So you should be careful with what you do. On the positive side: all the compatibility base entries have been retained. So it should be relatively easy to fix.

Even so...  It is annoying to see how easily all your customization gets removed just like that, especially since the process to build this up will probably take you hours.

And if you're a control freak like me then you will likely run into some more oddities here and there. For example: in the above picture you can also see that I grouped Animals and Creatures together with Figures. It made more sense to me: one section for all my figures ("actors"). After the upgrade DS also (re-)created the Animals and Creatures root sections. But those were easily dealt with: simply right click on an item, select "Categorize..." and change things the way they were (by de-selecting all the stuff under the Creature category for example). But there's more...

This is a freebie I picked up when I was still a member of the Daz Platinum club: the Fairytale Bassinette. Well, I don't think I have to explain why this looks totally bizarre to me. The Smart content pane claims that the item is Unassigned (so it doesn't have a category) while you can clearly see in the other window that I catagorized this under Props. Thats a bit sloppy if you ask me. Easily remedied using the content library, but sloppy nonetheless.

Second concern...

As mentioned earlier I had 2 concerns. The other was the possible dependency on an Internet connection. Especially because most videos and introductions show you how easy it is now: just log on when you start the program and off you go. Well, no offense intended but: no thanks. I do not want a program which asks me to log onto an (Internet) account every time I start it up. For very simple obvious reasons: when I start DS I do so because I want to get some work done. What happens if my Internet connection is down? What happens if they're performing maintenance on their website?

I'll tell you what happens: then you most likely get faced with time-outs. The program will try to log on for an x amount of time after which it will give up. So ending up with wasted time if all you wanted to do was to fire up the program and do your things.

Fortunately DS has us covered there, and I'm quite pleased with it too.

During the (first) startup it'll present you with a window where you can logon. Or where you can tell it that you want to work offline. And the best part: it has a "Do not show this again" checkbox. So right now my DS starts up in offline mode by default and it behaves no different than 4.8 did, which is a major pro for me.

However...  If you wish to change the behavior later then you may have run into a hard time again. I tried to turn the dialog back on in order to show you guys in this review but to no avail: I searched everywhere but couldn't find the option to turn it back on.

Daz Connect caveats

With the introduction of 4.9 also comes a new feature: Daz Connect. It allows us to get access to (new) products and product updates right from within DS. The only requirement is that you're logged onto Daz (your Daz account) within DS. The idea itself seems pretty solid to me; instead of having to use 2 programs (DIM & DS) we can now focus ourselves completely on 1: Daz Studio itself. So the very moment you buy something online you can fire up DS where you'll find your product ready to be installed.

There is a problem though: because this is basically a completely new library you risk re-installing the same products which you already have installed. So instead of saving diskspace, as claimed by Daz, it actually risks gobbling up more diskspace. Worse yet: wasting diskspace in the process too because you run into the liable risk of having the same product installed twice.

Pictures or it didn't happen, right?

Lets take a look at another favorite product of mine: the Hooded Cloak for Genesis.

As you can see I have the product installed and it even supports the Smart content pane, so it should be available to me right away. However.. If I look into my product items from within DS (using the content library) it will actually claim that the product hasn't been installed yet. Even though it does recognize the entry. The only option you have left is to install it:

After you done that and added Genesis to your scene you'll soon find the product appearing in the smart content pane as usual. But something is a bit off here. Because at first nothing seems wrong: only one product is shown. But if you dig a little deeper and also check out your content library you'll notice that you now have 2 versions installed:

I hope its viewable. The item in the smart content pane is installed in my Daz Connect library while the same item is also availble in my regular Daz library. Thus I end up with the same product installed twice. And because Daz Connect overrules the product installation section there is no easy way for me to remove the old product anymore. If I select the product using the content library, then tell it to show it in Smart Content => Products I end up with the Daz Connect product. Uninstalling that will merely remove it from the new library, not the old one.

Sure, this product is only a few megabytes so you'll hardly notice it. But what happens when some of the other products become available thorugh Daz Connect?

On the positive side, it is still possible to fully customize the location of this new directory. And considering that disk space is relativelly cheap nowadays I think this issue is not as troublesome as it might appear. Though I still think that the introduction of this feature isn't very elegant and open for improvement.

Another concern which I now got with Daz Connect is the moment when you have to deal with multiple updates. In the DIM it's easy: just select all the products you wish you install, leave your computer running (like I did with upgrading to 4.9) and come back after a few hours or so.

Daz Connect is focussed on installing products on a per-product basis. It does provide a queue feature, so if you select another product then it'll also get installed eventually, but its not as easy as simply selecting everything available and off you go.

But in all fairness I also think its important to mention that part of this confusion could be caused by the current transition we're in: the process of moving a bit away from the current library towards the Daz Connect library. And in all honesty: DS has you mostly covered. If you discover a lot of items in your smart contents product section and notice them under the section "Installed" then you've been warned that if you try to (re-)install them you're basically creating copies.

Just so we're clear: please do not confuse my criticism for negativity, because that's not the case here.

Improvements

If you read the Daz 4.9 product announcement then you'd almost think that its all about Daz Connect and the option to provide you with (new) product access from within DS but trust me when I say that there's more to it than that. The environment has also been heavily improved and updated and several (small) annoyances with the interface have been resolved. Even for older machines / environments such as mine.

For example: I'm still working on a 4:3 flatscreen which uses a resolution of 1024x768. It supports higher resolutions as well, but this is what I prefer working with because it's easier on my eyes and well.. I've got used to it. DS fully supports this and is fully usable. But there were always a few small hinderences. If I kept the smart content pane open (positioned at the left side) and my scene pane (on the right) then the scene pane would "push away" the tabs on the left side. Effectively making it impossible for me to close the smart content pane. In order to do that I'd first need to close the scene pane, then I regained access to the other tabs again.

No more...

See above. This used to be impossible; the tabs on the left side of the screen would simply disappear in DS 4.8. Also pay attention to the product section in the smart content pane: As you can see from the icons (circle in upper right corner) they're all ready to be installed, but because they sit in the 'Installed' section (see bottom side of pane) I know up front that installing these will basically re-install them.

On a side note: in the picture you can see one of the reasons why I still favor Genesis so highly. Here I positioned the Riley model (Riley for Stephanie 5) which is my all time favorite so far. Genesis may have been preceeded by the second and third generations, but the amount of control and flexibility which this product gives me never stops to amaze me.

Summing up

I know there are plenty of options left which I haven't mentioned. Rendering a picture seems to be a little faster, the "Filter By Context" checkbox seen in the above picture is also new. But that's also a little hard for me after having only worked with 4.9 for approximately one day. And I also know that there's much more to Daz Connect then I'm addressing here: for example the DRM aspects which have been heavily discussed already.

Thing is: right now the main thing for me is to have the option to continue working with DS in the same way as I did with 4.8. And I think Daz has managed to provide just that. Though with a few strings and caveats attached.

As such the title: not perfect, but hardly as bad as some people claim.