Digital Art Zone

In a previous thread I mentioned I was till fairly new to Daz studio, so there’s a lot for me to digest as I’m moving from Poser. One of the stumbling blocks I’m finding at the moment is how certain items can be there one minute and gone the next. As a previous poser user, I’m used to having one content library and navigating around, which is still present in Daz. Still the convenience of the Smart content window was not lost on me during my migration, and I’d like to get good mileage out of it.

So far I’ve managed to figure out the majority seems context sensitive. I click on Pose & Animate, and I’m presented with poses and shaping tools, and under actors I naturally find character models, outfits and props. However, there are still times I’m left scratching my head and wondering why I can’t find various items I’ve installed despite having seen them in the lists before.

The latest case-in-point are the UberSurface2 shaders. Note that I can find them perfectly in the content library, but not under smart content where it had been previously. I had them listed under Surfaces at one point, but then it mysteriously vanished and I’ve not been able to locate it since aside from using the Content Library window.

While I don’t mind using the Content Library to install things, it’s still rather baffling and I’m hoping someone can shed some light on why it might be hiding previously visible things from view.

HeraldOfFire - 23 November 2012 07:36 AM

In a previous thread I mentioned I was till fairly new to Daz studio, so there’s a lot for me to digest as I’m moving from Poser. One of the stumbling blocks I’m finding at the moment is how certain items can be there one minute and gone the next. As a previous poser user, I’m used to having one content library and navigating around, which is still present in Daz. Still the convenience of the Smart content window was not lost on me during my migration, and I’d like to get good mileage out of it.

So far I’ve managed to figure out the majority seems context sensitive. I click on Pose & Animate, and I’m presented with poses and shaping tools, and under actors I naturally find character models, outfits and props. However, there are still times I’m left scratching my head and wondering why I can’t find various items I’ve installed despite having seen them in the lists before.

The latest case-in-point are the UberSurface2 shaders. Note that I can find them perfectly in the content library, but not under smart content where it had been previously. I had them listed under Surfaces at one point, but then it mysteriously vanished and I’ve not been able to locate it since aside from using the Content Library window.

While I don’t mind using the Content Library to install things, it’s still rather baffling and I’m hoping someone can shed some light on why it might be hiding previously visible things from view.

Smart Content is context-sensitive in that it filters based on your selection. While this is hugely useful, sometimes you want the “normal” unfiltered view. This thread http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/8724/ outlines a workaround to do that because its not natively supported in Studio at the moment.

Keep in mind Smart Content is the Smart Content tab. Pose & Animate is NOT Smart Content - it is something different. What you see in Pose & Animate (or in Shaping) is determined by content assets types. That’s a whooooooooooole lotta discussion, and you’d better read the metadata tutorials to understand it (see the metadata toolkit link in my sig).

I had noticed with the last update 12700_UberSurface2DS4_1.3_ds the location, in the Surfaces Pane in Preset mode, changed positions appearing in Presets > Shader in DS4.5.1.6

Szark, yes I did notice that it was under Shaders but as you’ll see from the following images, it’s simply not visible on my smart content tab. Once it’s been loaded from the Content Library it seems to make itself visible however (Far right on the image to illustrate).

Is it possible the metadata didn’t install correctly?

Have you tried Resetting the Metadata? If not and you don’t know how when I have finished my evening meal I will pop back and post some screencaps showing how.

I’m not sure what you mean by a reset, but I re-imported the metadata and it had no effect. I still need to load in UberSurface2 from the content library before it becomes visible in the smart content pane. Quite perplexing.

re-importing is essentaily resetting the information sorry for the confusion.

The only other thing I can suggest is “Resetting the Database” and then “Re-importing the Metadata” which might work. Not sure how it effects Categories as I don’t use them now.

The reason why I can’t say what will fix it is two fold. One I never have any issues with content and two I haven’t come across this before.

Szark - 23 November 2012 02:17 PM

re-importing is essentaily resetting the information sorry for the confusion.

The only other thing I can suggest is “Resetting the Database” and then “Re-importing the Metadata” which might work. Not sure how it effects Categories as I don’t use them now.

The reason why I can’t say what will fix it is two fold. One I never have any issues with content and two I haven’t come across this before.

WARNING - resetting the database will totally wipe all your metadata, categorization etc. If you’ve done lots of work organizing your content you’ll need to start over.

Reimporting metadata will add the asset to the default categories again without removing it from any other categories you may have put it into since your last import. If you didn’t change the categories, reimporting will have no effect on categories. If you did, the asset will end up in multiple categories.

Thx cridgit not using Categories I didn’t know if it would have an effect hence why I mentioned it. Now I know cheers for that.

But can’t we now save the User Data before resetting the database, if effect backing up the Categories?

While we’re on the subject of finding things, I’m quite confused by UberEnvironment2 which is apparently built into Daz 4.5 yet for some reason doesn’t appear anywhere in my smart content, nor content library. The options for lighting are quite basic at the moment, and there seems to be no option to use shaders of any description.

There’s been a lot of stumbling around in the dark so far, but most of it I’ve found on my own. Google has sadly yielded little results other than to redirect me to a few videos which run down the basic light functions and another which shows the UberEnvironment2 appearing under the smart content list.