Digital Art Zone

I’ve been reading the online DAZ documentation concerning the folders where content should be installed to, but I still can’t get clear in my mind what the distinction is between:

  Studio/My Library

and

  Studio3/content

... other than the fact that the latter was used by DS 3.x

The reason that I am confused is that some installers choose the first path as a default, and some the second, and there doesn’t appear to be any consistency - even in the same package I have seen the content installer choose Studio/My Library and the MetaData installer choose Studio3/content.

My understanding is that, as of DS 4.x, all content should be going into Studio/My Library. So is there any need to keep Studio3/content at all?

If it isn’t needed, is it possible to simply merge everything from Studio3/content into Studio/My Library, so that everything is in one place?

Those are just the default names - you don’t have to use either, it’s only the folders within (particularly the \data and \Runtime folders) that are critical. You can certainly merge the two if you wish.

Richard Haseltine - 03 July 2012 07:16 AM

Those are just the default names - you don’t have to use either, it’s only the folders within (particularly the \data and \Runtime folders) that are critical. You can certainly merge the two if you wish.

OK, thanks.  That’s good to know (it might be useful then if DAZ standardised on just the one folder structure - I notice that the default content with DS 4.5 Pro RC1 seems to end up all over the place) but, just to be clear, are you saying that I can do the following?

1) Move everything below Studio3/content to Studio/My Library (merging the folder trees)
2) Delete Studio3/content

Will I need to rebuild the content database or re-import the Metadata after I have done this?

Thanks for your assistance.

If you have set up custom categories, Adamr001 has a tutorial on how to update the content database for new paths.  I would re-import the metadata if some of it was for items installed to studio3/content.  Remember to go to Edit > Preferences > Content Library > Content Directory Manager and remove studio3/content from both DAZ Studio Formats and Poser Formats after you’ve moved everything over.

Or you can continue to use both, as DS4 can have multiple content folders.

fixmypcmike - 03 July 2012 08:55 AM

Or you can continue to use both, as DS4 can have multiple content folders.

It’s not really the two content folders that is bugging me, but the seemingly random way in which content is distributed between them, depending upon the vintage of the product’s installer.

Anyway, thanks for your help. I shall try this and see what happens.

Actually, there is another issue. I’ve just remembered all those shortcuts to the uninstallers in the Start Menu; they will need updating as well.

You could just delete the uninstallers if you have the installers backed up somewhere.

acanthis - 03 July 2012 09:38 AM

It’s not really the two content folders that is bugging me, but the seemingly random way in which content is distributed between them, depending upon the vintage of the product’s installer.

This has always been a problem, even before DAZ decided to play musical chairs with the default content location. It’s why one of the first and most vital pieces of advice for running a DAZ installer is “never ever let the installers run on Default Settings (Recommended)”.

SpottedKitty - 03 July 2012 04:17 PM

This has always been a problem, even before DAZ decided to play musical chairs with the default content location. It’s why one of the first and most vital pieces of advice for running a DAZ installer is “never ever let the installers run on Default Settings (Recommended)”.

Yes, well that’s a lesson that I have now learned!

I think the reason why people do allow the default setting (including me) is because they simply don’t understand where stuff should be going, and naturally assume that the “default” setting is the right one.  OK, I know it isn’t necessarily the “wrong” one because D|S can still find everything, but it does result in a rather messy filesystem.

Anyway, thanks for all the help on this question. After all this, I’ve come to the conclusion that the “safest” way to tidy things up is to uninstall everything that went to the “wrong” place and then re-install it where I want it.  What fun that will be.