Digital Art Zone

Hi, first post here. Please feel free to point me to a thread that has the answers to the questions I’m putting forth or to merge this with such a thread if necessary.  In short, I need help with proper installation of various additions (clothing sets, characters, hair, etc.) for Victoria 4.2.

I got Daz Studio 4.5 from this weekend as well as various items including Victoria 4.2, clothing sets for same and other items. I’m not sure, however, that I’ve properly installed them. Let me explain - there seem to be two or three issues here, possibly interrelated.

1) Most of the items I’ve gotten are at least a couple of years old (dating from 2007 to 2010) and use BitRock Installer to install. I seem to end up having to install these items twice because, on the first go-round, at completion of installation the Program Compatibilty Assistant (I have Windows 7 64-bit) pops up and tells me the program might not have installed correctly and suggests doing it over again with recommended settings. I then go back and do it again as suggested, and on the second try, the item seems to install correctly. However…!

2) I’m not sure at all that I’ve installed the items in the right directory. There are two directories that Daz Studio uses to store content, from what I can tell:

c;/Programs (x86)/Daz/Studio/Content

and

c:/Users/User/Documents/Daz 3D/Studio/My Library

Virtually all the older items I’ve been installing default to the first directory, but I am wondering if maybe I should have used the second directory instead? I’m really not sure about this because when I go to Content Library (on the right-hand side of the program interface, as you know) and tell the program where to find those items, most of them show up properly).

3) A third problem I seem to be having is that I’m not sure where to find the basic Victoria 4/4.2 female figure on my system to load it into Daz Studio. This creates problems for me when experimenting with placing clothing items on the figure to get practice - the basic Genesis female figure that comes with Daz Studio 4.5 won’t necessarily work with items intended for Victoria 4.2, and as I said, I can’t find the base Victoria 4 figures in the Content Library to load for experimentation/practice.

TL:DR - the above issues are establishing some significant roadblocks to me in learning how to use Daz Studio and Victoria 4.2, and I’d be very glad of any help you guys could give me. As I said, this is my first post here, and I am fairly sure at least one of the above questions has already been answered, so please do point me to any threads that have those answers.

ALL content Installers need to be pointed to the My Library folder. Due to the way Win7 works the Program files area of the HDD can no longer be used. Just change the Path in all installers to END with My Library now.

Also know this 99% of older content will not show in the Smart Content Tab, Open the Content Library Tab and look in it under Poser Formats and Daz Studio Formats for all your Files.

Jaderail - 11 October 2012 09:00 AM

ALL content Installers need to be pointed to the My Library folder. Due to the way Win7 works the Program files area of the HDD can no longer be used. Just change the Path in all installers to END with My Library now.

Also know this 99% of older content will not show in the Smart Content Tab, Open the Content Library Tab and look in it under Poser Formats and Daz Studio Formats for all your Files.

That makes a great deal of sense. *sigh* I suppose I’ll just have to uninstall and then reinstall everything that I did after the base program itself and Genesis Essentials. Well, good thing I did say “yes” to installing the uninstallers! 

EDIT: I’ve started the process of uninstalling the incorrectly installed add-ons, and I’m getting that popup from Program Compatibility Assistant that says “the program may not have installed correctly” even though the uninstallation was successfully completed. Is that just because those programs were written several years ago before the release of Win7?

Win7 will do that, it is safe to just close it. I do all the time. And you can just do this OPEN that content Folder and just Copy all the Files then open the My Library Folder and Paste then tell it to MERGE ALL. Everything will go into the proper place. The Draw back will be all those uninstallers will be broken

You could Also just Copy the Content Folder and put it in the same folder as the My Library Folder so it looks like this.

Studio/
.  Content
.  My Library

And Then Add that folder just like the My Library folder is listed in EDIT>Preferances>Content Library>Content Directory Manager.
Be sure you list it under the Daz Formats and Poser Formats just like My Library is listed.

You will still lose the Uninstallers.

Jaderail - 11 October 2012 10:58 AM

Win7 will do that, it is safe to just close it. I do all the time. And you can just do this OPEN that content Folder and just Copy all the Files then open the My Library Folder and Paste then tell it to MERGE ALL. Everything will go into the proper place. The Draw back will be all those uninstallers will be broken

You could Also just Copy the Content Folder and put it in the same folder as the My Library Folder so it looks like this.

Studio/
.  Content
.  My Library

And Then Add that folder just like the My Library folder is listed in EDIT>Preferances>Content Library>Content Directory Manager.
Be sure you list it under the Daz Formats and Poser Formats just like My Library is listed.

You will still lose the Uninstallers.

Understood. The safest thing to do, since I do want to keep the uninstallers, is probably just to uninstall all that stuff (which I’ve just completed doing) and then re-install, starting with Victoria 4.2.  I’m looking at my C: drive right now and I believe the correct directory to install to is as follows:

C:/Users/User/My Documents/Daz 3D/Studio/My Library

This is the same directory that the files associated with Daz Studio 4.5 and Genesis Essentials successfully installed to when I started out, and which are accessible in Smart Content.

YES all goes into My Library now. Use just that Path ending at My Library. Do not let any add to or remove from that path.

Jaderail - 11 October 2012 11:17 AM

YES all goes into My Library now. Use just that Path ending at My Library. Do not let any add to or remove from that path.

OK, got it. Actually, I’m thinking at this point - I’m still not sure that some stuff installed correctly and I might have messed something up while refreshing the Content Library - that it might just be better to do a complete uninstall and reinstall of Daz from the ground on up. If I were to uninstall the main Daz Studio program, would it also uninstall all the add-ons and plugins, or would I have to uninstall each one separately?

In the meantime, I’ve been fiddling around this afternoon and experimenting with certain basic tasks such as putting hair and clothing on female figures. The main trouble I’m having is getting items to line up properly with the figures, so I’m wondering if there’s a tool to do it. I also can’t seem to find the base Victoria 4.2 figure (if in fact there is one), just poses and such, so I’m using the Genesis base female which I’m not sure is optimized for a lot of the Victoria 4.2 addons even though I understand it’s supposed to work with various versions of Victoria stuff.

If you Uninstall the Program that sounds like it is working fine by the way the Plugins will go as well. But why nUninstall the working Program when the Content is at fault? Just Open the My Library Folder and Empty it. Then Install all of it again.

The V4 Figure is a Older POSER format figure Look in Content Library Tab>Poser Formats>My Library> Lots of the Older items are in Poser Format,The Daz Studio Poses and Textures will be in the Daz Studio Formats section.

All the Sections are used by DS even the Poser Format Sections. DS started when programs supported Poser 100% so it will use lots of that section to hold your needed content.

Jaderail - 11 October 2012 02:44 PM

If you Uninstall the Program that sounds like it is working fine by the way the Plugins will go as well. But why nUninstall the working Program when the Content is at fault? Just Open the My Library Folder and Empty it. Then Install all of it again.

The V4 Figure is a Older POSER format figure Look in Content Library Tab>Poser Formats>My Library> Lots of the Older items are in Poser Format,The Daz Studio Poses and Textures will be in the Daz Studio Formats section.

All the Sections are used by DS even the Poser Format Sections. DS started when programs supported Poser 100% so it will use lots of that section to hold your needed content.

Blast. I was certain I missed something somewhere, and here it is. When I installed Victoria 4.2 Pro there were two files marked ps_pe_069_Victoria4, and only one of them was marked DS. So I just installed the DS. If I understand you correctly, I need to install ALL the installers, even the ones that are specifically marked as being DPC, which I think means for Poser. (shakes head) Why couldn’t there just be a single installer per program to install all this stuff instead of having to do it piece by piece by piece by piece? One is lead-pipe certain to miss something important, as you have apparently just shown me I did.

That was done so Poser people only had to load the ONE file, we DS folks get to do the two step. The Good news is the DS files work much better in DS than the same texture for Poser does in DS. WE get more for the Same Price too

We were all in your place once I even did that very same thing.

Jaderail - 11 October 2012 02:56 PM

That was done so Poser people only had to load the ONE file, we DS folks get to do the two step. The Good news is the DS files work much better in DS than the same texture for Poser does in DS. WE get more for the Same Price too

We were all in your place once I even did that very same thing.

When I come across a file suffixed _ca (meaning Carrara), do I have to install that as well, or can I just use the DS and DPC installers?

You do not need the Carrara files But keep them. You might go Carrara one day.

Jaderail - 11 October 2012 03:51 PM

You do not need the Carrara files But keep them. You might go Carrara one day.

Will do, and I think I’ve finally caught up with all the items I’ve installed so far on my desktop. Now to do it all over again on my laptop…

After a hour and a half or so of trial and error, I’ve produced my first successful Daz Studio render of a Victoria 4 figure. Where can I post the image for comments? Looking at the render, there are several subjects that I obviously need to learn more about.

You can Start a Thread in the Art Studio Forum. I and many others frequent it so you should get good feedback. Or start another Help thread in this forum and ask for rendering help and tips. It’s really not set in stone.