Characters in Smart Content
ledhead
Posts: 1,586
I just downloaded around 15 characters and there seems to be a hierarchy problem.
I have characters under Figures, People, Presets, Shaping and Unassigned.
I don't understand why there are all not under one folder or another. People seems to be a good one.
It seems many different people are setting up the installers and there is no certain way to do it other than the way that person setting it up wants to.
I thought Smart Content was supposed to be better, but it seems to be the same way the Content Library was done, all over the place.
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But you can just categorize in Smart Content, can't you?
Yes, stuff seems to pop up just about everywhere in smart content. I tend to rearrange everything to my liking so that characters are all under characters and so on. Smart content uses the categories from the content library to sort everything, so it's quite easy to rearrange them properly.
First of all, I shouldn't have to categorize anything if it was set up properly to begin with.
Secondly, it does seem like I can categorize, but only by one file at a time and not by a product.
Lastly, some of the files for the different products are separated into different categories rather than being together and some of them are not named correctly or not named at all which makes it very difficult to know what product it goes with.
To me it's just a mess that didn't need to be. It's called Smart Content and should relate as such, but it follows the same pattern as the Content Library, which is no pattern whatsoever.
I don't understand why DAZ did not follow a certain protocol when categorizing the content and having the PA's do the same, that is if the PA's set it up. Maybe DAZ does all of it, I have no idea. Either way it should be organized for the user, not the user trying to make sense of it, then spend hours trying to organize it their self.
Or am I expecting too much and I should deal with it the same way I've had to deal with the Content Library?
I didn't know that it uses the file structure in the Content Library. That certainly would make it easier to categorize, but it still proves my point that they just don't give a crap how much of a mess it is and instead make the user have to deal with it. Why can't they come to an agreement on how to organize it.
It just doesn't make sense to me. I guess I am too organized and see it as nothing but a group of people who do not care how screwed up it is and continue to set it up the way they want to rather than in a well structured way.
Sorry about the ranting. It's just so frustrating that I am going to have to spend more of my time sorting out this mess in order to be able to find the content rather than doing something more productive like creating something with it instead.
Oh, it's a mess alright, totally agree on that :-) Databases usually are, and the more people involved, the messier they get.
But at least smart content is a mess that you can organize if you put some time and effort in it. I think people have just gotten used to the content library after using it so long in DS/Poser, that they don't see how much better Smart Content is.
I haven't, i just got in a few months ago. I took my first steps in Poser Debut, then switched to DS4.0, now DS4.5. Having Smart Content available (as a tool, not as an out-of-the-box solution) was such a relief for me. It's still a major pita to edit/creat/organize the metadata, and it takes way more effort and time than it should, but once i do it for one product, it's there for me. The stuff i buy just pops up in my Smart Content whenever i could use it. I don't have to search for it, i don't even have to remember that i have something for that. It's just there for me to use. And i think that's a major step forward compared to the old Content Library.
(just my two cents)
It sounds as if you are mixing different areas - Figures is surely the Poser figure library, for Poser format items, People and Presets are DAZ Studio content folders (and I agree that the stuff in Presets would usually be better under the people folder for the figure it goes with), Unassigned is a category folder (and so may contain things that haven't been assigined to a category which are in any of the earlier folder for actual files), and I'm not sure what Shaping would be.
I agree that stuff should go into place in some sort of logical order. Then I could find it very fast and move it to where I want it. Very few items stay in the default locations in my content. I always set them up for the way I work, I always have. For me that is one of the big pluses of DS. I know where everything is because I put it there on my own.
I am in the process of doing that, quite cumbersome btw, but I started to notice some odd places for things to be in. The Aldora Hair textures is under Default\Materials\Wardrobe. Why in the world would hair textures/materials be in wardrobe? Do the people who set this stuff up even care where it goes?
My wrist is killing me after just organizing the essentials. I only have around a thousand products to go with tens of thousands of individual items. Of course some of them are not in the Smart Content yet, but I still have the Content Library for those items not included in the Smart Content.
By the time I get this done, the Install Manager will be out and I'll probably have to start all over again. Weeeee!!!
I have a question if anyone can answer this. When changing where to find a product in the Smart Content and I remove the check mark for the default location then accidentally not check a new location, how would I bring it back into the Smart Content location without screwing anything else up that has been changed?
Remember Genesis is a subcategory under people then it gets broken down to
Characters,Clothing,Materials,Poses,Props
I will agree someone needs a boot up the you know what, for letting this get out of hand and in such a mess. Not even us vendors know where to put the stuff we keep asking.
We need to have a panel of experts that has been working with DS for years, another panel of people with excellent organizational skills, then they come to a decidedly mutual agreement. Then DAZ would need to send out emails to the PA's letting them know they way things need to be done. I am certainly no expert on the software, but I have very good sills at organizing. If only it would get done so we didn't have to spend numerous hours organizing content or spend numerous hours searching for content. If only!
In fact, now we have a official standard published, but not duly announced.
The announce is here.
The official standard is here: Content Types and Default Categories
The public discussion about metadata is here: Metadata Guidelines
I see some annoyances, as put the product's characters morphs in /Default/Shaping/Apply. From a logical point of view that is correct, but from a usability point I would prefer get this files listed with the product's materials preset under /Default/Materials/Feminine/Product Name as example. Anyway I always edit the provided metadata to add my needs.
More than the categories mess, I think a major problem is the badly formatted metadata and a lack of standard in the installers. Almost every current product comes with 2 installers. One for DS and one for Poser, but sometimes you need both. Let's take Family Car 1950 (SKU# 13627). If you use only the DS installer you will loss the materials and the poses which are in the Poser installer. I don't want or need the Poser .cr2 because I just have the .daz in the DS installer but without the poses and material. So the DS installer is incomplete. There are no way to know in advance if you will need both installers. That is really a mess.
I certainly agree with the installers not being forthright in what you need to install for what software you are using. It would make more sense just to have everything you need for DS in one installer and for Poser in the other. The only way to really find out is to install the DPC file first, then the DS file. If you are asked to uninstall the first one, then you didn't need it.
I had no idea about the topic in another thread nor the final outcome of it.
TY for that MBusch.
Does anyone know what it means when I have Duplicate ID's loading a product into the scene. It happens with "Wicked Dance Fevah" and with the "Female Genitalia". (Edited)
Redownloading and reisntalling the product should give you an update that fixes the issue, but I have a script that will update your content locally to remove the duplicate IDs if you don't want to redownload a lot of stuff at once. It's a problem with the older versions of DS not having enforced uniqueness of identifiers, but 4.5 requiring uniqueness.