Why is it STILL so complicated to find your content in Daz Studio?
paul_carder_74313dfe2f
Posts: 42
...and can I claim back the hours of my life I've wasted trying to find what I bought!? The Daz content list should read;
People (M4, Genesis etc)
Clothing
Poses
Hands
Hair
Textures
Props
Animals
Scenes
Anything you buy should fall into a strict category whether it's Daz or Poser. I spend more time looking for stuff than actually working on projects!
How many more versions is it going to take before you guys listen to your customers! Slate me as much as you like, you know I'm right.
That is all! Rant over...
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Comments
You can always got to Products category and its all in alphabetical order. If its a pack with only DS support it will be in DAZ Studio Format. If it's for DS and Poser it will be in Poser Format
Thanks for your post Frank0314 and I appreciate you commenting.
The fact that your solution is a 'work-around' proves my point. I don't want two ways of finding content, I want ONE. Like any other software has.
Even if Daz added a search (that worked), the clever people who develop the third party content are allowed to give them ridiculous names, which makes it even HARDER to find!
I would post a screen shot of some examples, but my Daz is busy exporting an FBX.
I find it much easier to find content in DS than it is in Poser. Most packs are with the artist individual folder.
There is a content sorting system based on categories that are strictly regulated. It's found in the Smart Content Pane.
The DAZ Studio Format and Poser Format containers of the content library pane are strictly folder based browsing systems. Poser Format Content and DAZ Studio Format Content exist in separate locations on disk. That is one of the reasons they are separated.
Attached is a screenshot (FBX is now exported)
This shows an example of what makes me angry with the whole process.
A user has to remember that the Studio/Developer has named it's content '3D Universe' - which, after you've bought it, and have come back to Daz several days later, means nothing. The M4 golf shirt should be found at the following route;
My library/Clothing/Male......
Why can't it be that simple? Surely Daz could impose a law to third party developers that would make sure that their products would fall neatly into place within Daz Studio after installation.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but that makes much more sense, right?
PS: It's NOT a 'figure'...it's CLOTHING
DAZ can only suggest to their own PA's the file structure to use. They can't dictate what some rendo or rdna vendor does with their packs. Poser format doesn't have a clothing folder. Clothing is a cr2 and will always be under Figures. If its a DAZ only product it will be listed in the cloths folder most the time
And why does dynamic 'CLOTHING' appear under 'People'? (see second screenshot)
It's nuts! It's about time you sorted t out. For the sanity of beginner users like myself. It seems I would have to spend a lot of time getting my head around Daz file structures, but the reality is.....people don't have time for that.
PS: You state: They can’t dictate what some rendo or rdna vendor does with their packs.
You can dictate what you want, they're making money from you selling their products! You're the boss.
Most modern content comes with metadata, meaning it's categorized under wardrobe/prop/set items and so forth, making it (in my humble opinion) easier to find items. If that wasn't enough, it comes with a search bar so you can type the name of a product and find it almost immediately. Items which don't have metadata can be given it fairly easily, and I have done so with most of my older content.
The system you complain about was actually introduced by Poser and was adopted by Daz simply so that people could continue to use their old Poser runtimes without any issues. Once you know where to start looking for items, it becomes second nature but I'll happily admit that it's not the most intuitive for new starters.
Daz makes no money from other vendors' sales on non-Daz sites. The only people who profit there are the hosts (Renderosity or RDNA) and the vendor selling the item. Since the categorization is done entirely at the whim of the person creating the content, it often follows the convention of being under the artists name (Eg: 3D Universe/Toon Girl Sadie).You can argue the point all you like, but it won't change the fact that the control is not in the hands of Daz themselves. It's entirely up to the content creators to categorize and label the content so you can find it. Most ZIP files include a Readme document to tell you exactly where to find the items, and all current Daz content is supplied with metadata to make finding it trivial.
If you're trying to find DAZ product and use the DIM, there's a fairly quick back-way to find the files that you've installed. Just load DIM, select "installed files," search for the item you're looking for, then highlight it and scroll down to "show installed files". Unfortunately that doesn't work with files from Rendo, RDNA, CP, etc....
Believe me, you're not the only one who thinks the current system is awful, but to be fair, a lot of the problem is due to the need for backwards compatibility with the way Poser organizes files. The whole thing started to go wrong when textures and morphs for Gen 4 and earlier are found under "poses" (or sometimes materials) rather than figures, while some parts of sets are "figures" and others are "props" and hair can be either "hair" or props". However, the real problem is that most items are combinations of the various elements, so it makes a certain amount of sense to group everything together under a single name... and then you have to take into account textures sets that cover more than one product. In cases like that, a vendor specific folder may be the most efficient way. At least beginning with Genesis you can find 95% of your items under "people", but as there are people who're still using Poser 4, the vendors are stuck with making their product useable by the majority of potential customers.
It would be nice if Daz imposed some standards. Even the much lauded meta data/smart content is a mess. With PAs putting stuff where they feel like. Looking in the DIM is a good solution if you know what you're looking for. Sadly I have too much content for that to work.
HeraldOfFire and Cybersox13 you speak a lot of sense, and obviously you two have spent a lot of time in Daz to know what's what.
I appreciate that the backwards compatibility issue is holding up progress, but surely at some point in time there should be a cut-off point, and then the people in charge of Daz file structure can start picking up the pieces and get it sorted into strict and easy to find (for novices) categories.
Until then, it seems I'll have to consult the readme's, but surely you lot must acknowledge that that's a bit rubbish.
I don't have to consult readme's after I install an After Effects or FCP plug-in to know where it is.
This is how I minimise the problems you speak of http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/11176/#160909 multiple content folders and yes with DIM.
Thanks for that Szark, but again as I mentioned before that's a 'work-around'. (don't get me wrong....nice work!)
You've had to customise your file structure, which shouldn't be necessary.
Not so much customise but more of reducing files to look through but I do get your point as many, including myself, have moaned about this very issue.
Remember what makes sense to you is not necessarily a solution that makes the most sense to everyone. What makes sense to you now, might not make as much sense for your content as you get more of it.
The solution to the confusion is why we added Metadata and the Smart Content pane.
Granted there were some hiccups early in the process, and there are still some errors made, but for the most part it works. This is especially true of items in the store produced with a SKU Number after about 14500. With the next Public Beta of DS we are giving you an even easier way to add content that is not in the smart content pane, or move content which isn't where you want it in the Smart Content Pane.
Is it ideal? No, at least not yet, but we are aware of it and are headed toward solutions that make the most sense for each individual.
That's not really realistic. DAZ Studio uses DAZ Studio and Poser content, and each of which is organised differently due to historic reasons. The content within the Poser runtime gets used by a lot of different applications in the same way (and had been like that for ages), so DAZ cannot really dictate or go ahead with a cut-off point there. To transform the file structure of e.g. Poser content into more newbie-friendly structure is simply not really doable by e.g. automated means. DAZ got a certain standard with how DAZ Studio content sold on the DAZ site gets organised, but that is about it. When DAZ Studio content (or any content for that matter) gets sold elsewhere they cannot dictate anything at all - it is simply impossible.
Personally, I am always on the stand-point that any automated, dictated system is likely rubbish (I literally hate smart content and never install meta data) and I am only able to get the categorisation of my liking if I use my own categories - which is what I do in DAZ Studio. You can categorise literally everything how and where you like and, no, that is not a workaround, that is a feature.
I'm sure all of you guys are very experienced in Daz, as I am in After Effects.
I'm dipping my toe in Daz for an animation pilot because there's no sense in paying pros for bespoke characters at this stage.
The fact that pros like yourselves agree that something should be done about the Daz Studio content file structure speaks volumes.
Thanks for your time gentlemen :)
I got into this when DAZ Studio was still in beta. At that time, most of the content I found was on sites other than DAZ, and how it was organized was for Poser, if it was organized at all. I soon found that if I loaded a dress from character, added acessories from props, textured it from pose, I had spent most of my time searching through the various folders to find everything. At that point I decided to organize content so that I could find it easily, and so the dress went into a folder of clothing devoted to the character it fit, with the accessories and textures in subfolders to the dress. I did that for everything, and because a lot of the stuff you buy outside of DAZ will not show up in Smart Content without a lot of extraneous work, it still is the way I organize. It's a little more work when manually installing, but the time it saves in hunting through folders makes up for it. Even if DAZ came up with a better way of organizing, it wouldn't suit most of us who use our own system nor would it help with organizing non-DAZ content.
I think a pop-up option in DIM would be the answer.
For example, when you go to install an item, it should ask you (the user) "What is this?" and then give you the option to choose from a drop
down menu. Then the scripting in DIM could place it in a designated subfolder in the Library.
I won't charge commission for that one ;)
Can anyone explain this smart content grouping?
Why do we have Figures then people but also People by itself? And why does Shanghai style (clothing) appear under the second people?
Same here. Bought some interiors/exteriors from Stonemason, Tomlin and a few others. Some are in Environments, some are in Scenes, some are in Sets and some are in Props. Ratio of searching for stuff vs. doing stuff = 4:1 But I never complain because I'm a mild-mannered person and this problem pales in comparison to say, getting an actor to look at something in the scene I'm doing.
Brian
(It's only hard for the first 80 years)
You can already tell DIM a specific location to install to. Not getting what your saying. You just have to set that location up and make sure its selected when you install that pack
Frank0314, I tried doing that a while ago, but all I got was error messages in Daz saying it couldn't find certain things. Sorry I can't be more specific. As a result I had to uninstall everything and start again.
Did you have all those locations also in your content directory under Poser and DS formats. Not being smart just trying to help
I just made folders called 'People', 'Props', 'Clothing' etc etc within My Library, and that was it. So when I installed an item of clothing, I aimed the installer at my 'Clothing' folder. That's pretty much all I did.
You need to add all those custom locations in your content directory manager so DS will recognize them. The locations have to be mapped in both Poser and DS
As much as enforcement of content structure would have helped back at the turn of the century, it's a bit late now. Even after the recent thinning of the DAZ catalog there are lots of products that still use the higgledy-piggledy method of content storage. And making yet another change to the DAZ content structure now is simply adding another straw to the camel's back. It is again the "Just one more thing to know" syndrome.
I just use the 20th century method of installing to a new folder on my desktop then manually sorting the pieces into the appropriate folders in my familiar structure. I don't produce any products for sale to DAZ so my structure is never imposed on anybody else. I'm sure much to their relief.
Being a person of the ancient persuasion, I'm tired of changing horses at the drop of a hat. I don't even use DAZ Studio4 very often. I still use Studio3 and use the "Categories" view that I set up several years ago and keep meticulously indexed as I add new content. I still don't trust the appropriately named DIM installer, or the Studio4 "Content Mangler". When I do have to use a Genesis character and consequently Studio4, I just suck it up and laboriously hunt through the folder view for the content I want.
What Frank is suggesting is creating new top-level folder, alongside My Library, and add those to the list of DAZ Studio Format or Poser Format Content directories in DS and to the list of installation directories in DIM.
Yes, thank you. You said it a little better than I was.